


Outside the Rules

by Kukolnyy (MelinyaValerian)



Series: Before the Thunderstorm [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I update tags along the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 07:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 70,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13542291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelinyaValerian/pseuds/Kukolnyy
Summary: Nobody is born a hero, and no villain has always been evil. Every journey has humble beginnings, and these are the stories that will tell how Freed Justine, Evergreen and Bickslow became friends, and later, Fairy Tail's strongest three-man-cell; the Raijinshuu.---Part I. Fiore, X778: Freed Justine is the third son of a Fiorean noble family, who has spent his life following the path his family has set out for him. For fourteen years and forty six weeks, this has granted him a mostly orderly life, structured and framed by rules and regulations that he has lived by mostly without doubts about his future - until a single incident involving a powerful magic plunges his whole world into chaos and he has to realise that nothing in this world is set in stone.





	1. Prologue: Distance

**Author's Note:**

> This whole project is inspired by one question: How did the Raijinshuu meet? It's been on my mind for a long time now, and at one point, my thoughts just started to go haywire and produce the basic ideas of what has become this series of stories.  
> This is Freed's story; the beginning of Freed, the Dark.
> 
> PSA: I will update the tags as I go on to not give away spoilers, I plan on publishing one chapter a week. As a little teaser, though; I'll start out with the first two chapters at once. Also, the necessary disclaimer - I made up a lot of things for this; but Fairy Tail isn't my intellectual property, and neither is Freed. This is set in the canon universe, and I try to be as close to the facts as possible.

The mountain tops were covered in never melting snow, even after the summer heat of the past weeks. They surrounded Lake Saffron in a ring, rugged and harsh but still majestic. Their pristine white was a stark contrast to the lake's deep blue waters, left mostly untouched by humans. Behind the crown of rock and snow, he could see crenellations and one single tower in the distance, like a reminder that there was indeed a world behind the arms of the mountain ridge. Mercurius, the palace of the King of Fiore, was the only building in Crocus high enough to be seen from where he lived.

It was a glorious view.

Unfortunately, it was also a rather bright view. The day was clear and so was the sky, and the snow reflected a good portion of the light which caused the mountains to appear as if they were glowing like pale miniature suns.

For a moment, Freed wished he could dwell upon it longer, but the stinging in his right eye reminded him that he currently wasn't on the best of terms with bright sunlight. Aside from that, it was lunch break and he had only so much time to eat and prepare for the next lecture.

His Rune Magic tutor had already left the study, and it was time Freed did the same. And so, he stored his books and writing utensils in the appropriate shelf, put his test results into the appropriate folder and left the study and the scenic view of his father's lands behind.

The castle of Lord Louie Justine lay on a small island in the centre of the Lake Saffron, and his lands extended over nearly all of the mountains in the North-East of Fiore's capital Crocus. Apart from a few mountain settlements and villages on the shore of the lake, though, most people preferred to live in the near capital and surrounding dales. And so, the comparative wealth of the region stemmed mostly from the mountains' rich mineral deposits and excellent financial management.

Never mind the relative solitude of the mountains, the few people that lived there would readily vouch that the Justines had always been just and fair rulers. They had never been overly ambitious, either, in fact, after one of their ancestors had built the castle centuries ago, they had never had any squabbles with neighbouring lords and had not once tried to expand their influence past the mountains. This policy secured a quiet peace that many of the region's inhabitants appreciated.

The maxim to preserve instead of expand also led the Justines to quietly acknowledge the sovereignty of the royal family after the Kingdom of Fiore had been founded. Their loyalty to the Kings and Queens of their country had always been met with utmost respect and goodwill, and so, both Fiore and the Justines had long since accepted the benefits of feudalism.

Freed, for his part, had been born into the Justine family exactly fourteen years and forty-six weeks ago. He was very familiar with his family's traditions and beliefs and had never found any striking reasons to not follow the course his father had set out for him. And for the time being, his father's plan for his youngest son consisted mostly of education, which, given his age and station, was more than logical.

On this day, he had already attended a fencing class in the morning and the aforesaid class in Rune Magic, the traditional form of magic his family had practised since generations. After his lunch break, his classes would carry on until the evening. It was a mostly very organised and structured life that Freed led, though his comparatively tight schedule sometimes pressed him to increase the efficiency of his other interests by combining them if the rules of his father allowed for it.

As he descended from the towers, for example, he had already reopened the folder with his test results and studied them intensely, relying on his instincts and practised feet to find the dining area on their own.

Only when he nearly crushed into two crossed spears he stopped.

“Sorry, Master Freed. The Lord's inside with Master Hal and Count Balsamico, they're having lunch. Nobody's allowed to interrupt them”, said one of the guards who had blocked his path.

“Of course, I beg your pardon”, Freed replied courtly, bowed shortly and walked away in the opposite direction.

Of course, the Count. It was a rather spontaneous visit, one that his father hadn't been particularly pleased with, but Louie Justine was nobody to send foreign rulers who asked for a meeting away. So he, together with his heir and eldest son Hal, had been tending to the Count since his arrival yesterday. Freed had been told during dinner on the day before that today he would have to take in his lunch in the castle's kitchen, as he was not allowed on official gatherings like the one with Count Balsamico. And as much as it bothered him to admit it, it had nearly slipped his mind.

Eating in the castle's kitchen wasn't the worst that could have happened, though. One of the cooks, an elderly lady with wild grey curls tied together in a very messy ponytail and more laughter lines on her face than Freed cared to count, was Constance, Freed's former nursemaid. Ever since Freed's mother had met her death in an avalanche in a hard winter when Freed had been very little, she had cared for him and practically helped to raise him. And if he had to eat in the kitchens, she always took it upon herself to cook something especially for him. She would even allow him to help her, if Freed had the time to stay a little longer, which hadn't happened all that often in the last months.

This day was no different, and as soon as he entered the kitchen, Freed was confronted with the wonderful smell of his favourite meal and not a minute later found himself sitting on a simple table opposite to Constance, a generous helping on the plate in front of him.

It tasted wonderful, but it didn't quite dissuade his thoughts from revolving around his test results. His quietness didn't slip Constance's attention, either, and after a few minutes in which she had simply watched him eat, she raised her voice: “You're awfully quiet, dear. I'd have thought you'd be more cheerful today.”

Momentarily distracted, Freed looked up to her from his meal. “Why should I be cheerful?”, he asked candidly. And realising how it probably sounded ungrateful, he added: “Apart from being happy about your splendid cooking, of course.”

Constance rewarded him with a kind smile and a soft shaking of her head. “One of the guards let it slip that you managed to defeat the marshal in the morning”, she said plainly.

“Oh, yes. That's true”, Freed replied shortly and turned his attention back to his food.

A few seconds later in which the sound of cutlery on a plate was the sole noise in the room, Constance let out a sigh that prompted Freed to look up to her again. She frowned. “Wasn't that one of your dreams? I can still remember you sitting on that very chair telling me how much you wanted to.”

Freed remembered that instance, he had a rather good memory, usually. “I was ten back then, Constance.”

“Does that make the dream any less sincere?”, she replied, looking at him intensely. “Or the accomplishment any less impressive?”

Freed flinched a little in his seat, turned his eyes away. Constance had a habit of worming things out of him that he didn't like to confess, and it always started with her looking at him like she did now. “No, but...”, he started, already half-anticipating the result.

“But...?”, she said sharply, and his defences were pierced.

“It's nothing impressive”, he admitted quietly. “The marshal said Hal defeated him a day after his fourteen's birthday, and I'm nearly fifteen.”

Constance took in a very deep breath that nearly sounded disappointed. “Freed, you're not Hal”, she said. “And you don't need to be.”

He had already stopped eating, and she took one of his hands into hers and patted it lightly. Her hand was warm and soft, and he could feel his thoughts becoming less complicated with every second.

It wasn't quite enough, though, and she could see it in the frown in his one visible eyebrow. “There is something else, isn't there, dear”, she said.

Freed gave up on hiding, it was no use when Constance had set her mind on it, no matter if he would deny it. “I'm starting to get forgetful”, he said, involuntarily taking her hand like he hadn't done in years. It felt soothing in his own. “I nearly collided with one of the guards because I forgot about the Count's visit, and my test results in Rune Magic are unacceptable.”

Constance chuckled, probably at his slightly defiant tone. “Let me guess, you made one mistake.”

“Two, in fact”, Freed corrected her. “Careless ones. Nothing more. It would have never happened to Coen.”

Coen Justine was Freed's second brother, a year younger than Hal. After his twenty-first birthday, he had left the castle behind to live in Crocus and start training as a Rune Knight, as it was tradition for the Lord's second son.

“Dear, you are not Coen, either”, Constance soothed him. She seemed to sense Freed's distress, she probably knew him too well. “Who cares if your brothers were faster, or made less mistakes.”

 _Father,_ thought Freed, but he didn't want to give that answer to Constance in defiance.

When he didn't reply, just avoided her eyes and looked back onto his nearly empty plate, she added: “And if it calms you down, neither of your brothers had to deal with what you have to deal with. You're already training far more than either of them had years ago.”

A pulse of dull pain moved though his right eye. Of course, she was right. Freed trained a lot more than either of his brothers, because he possessed something neither of them did. But it mattered very little to him – it was not that he received less of the usual training fit for a noble son, he rather had additional classes because of his _special circumstances_. And as long as it was additional, there was no reason it should inhibit his performance in any of his mandatory subjects.

 

\---

 

The library of the Justine's castle was located in one of the towers, on several levels, in fact; its many windows overlooking Lake Saffron. Freed liked this place, it was very big and very quiet, and there was much knowledge to be found here that just waited for him to discover it.

It was the place in the castle were he probably spent most of his rare free time.

Before his afternoon classes started, he usually took a walk up here to spend at least some minutes of his lunch break in between books. All things considered, his mood was relatively good today; seeing Constance had put his worries over his test results at ease if even only a little, and before he had left, she had winked at him and shown him the dough for the pastries she was preparing. In the evening, he would find cherry tartlets in his room, his favourites. Constance sometimes did things like that, she would always find an excuse for why pastries, chocolate or simply his favourite meal were absolutely necessary. Today, it had been his victory over the marshal, and Freed found himself feeling a little bit of pride at the thought after all. Constance was right insofar as that he hadn't heard his father's opinion on the matter yet, and a part of him wanted to be hopeful that it might be favourable for once, even when another pointed out that Hal had been quicker, and thus, it wasn't even worth mentioning.

Right now, though, Freed had still twenty minutes left before his afternoon classes. He usually spend the part of his lunch break with attending to essays he had to write for his Rune Magic or History classes, or, if they had been dealt with, he found enjoyment in studying foreign languages and scripts. He would return to the library after dinner once more, care for additional home work and then, when everything had been done and the time for bed had not yet come, he would sometimes read something more casual. Legends and myths were his first choice for these free time activities, but what had grabbed his attention about a week ago was a sort of novel unlike many things he had read before.

The book in question still lay opened on one of the desks at the window, and Freed scolded himself a little for it. All books had to be returned to their respective shelves once he left the library, those were the rules; and a permanent opening was potentially damaging for the cover. He remembered that he had been in a hurry the evening before, because he had already exceeded the time he was allowed to stay up at night. He probably had forgotten the book as he had hastily left the library. There they were again, the carelessnesses.

It was best he put it away before he searched for the appropriate material for his next History essay.

The book was one of the rare fictional stories he found interesting, it was called 'The Song of Creation'. Perhaps he liked it so much because it read like a history book; a fictional history, naturally, but still. It was certainly fascinating to read how angels supposedly had breathed life into the world so many centuries ago, how their song had shaped the world to how it currently looked, how their breath had given life to the races currently inhabiting Fiore and the other countries and continents. His History tutor had once told him that most stories had their roots in real events. In a world shaped by magic, where so many things were possible, who was to say where reality ended and fiction started? Freed himself was not completely certain about it, but his History tutor was a wise, well-read man, and Freed was inclined to trust his judgement on most matters.

He had left the library yesterday when he had been reading a particularly interesting passage about an angel who had dared to speak against his brethren which had caused the first conflict between them. He really wanted to know how the situation played out in total, how it would end, and the page was still opened. He quickly browsed through the book, only ten more pages to the end of the chapter. He already felt bad for even daring to think so, but would it really be so wrong if he quickly finished this chapter now and did his History essay after his evening classes? He was a quick reader, and now that he had the book in his hands, the images which had come up in his mind the evening before – the raging angel, his frightened brethren, the wrath of their father – it all came back to him. He felt a strong urge to just sit down and allow his mind an extended break for a change.

He noticed that his legs decided faster than his mind, that he sunk down on the chair, his right eye closed against the sun and his left eye glued to the pages, rereading the part where he had left off the day before. It would only take some minutes.

“Freed”, said a voice on the other side of the library. Startled out of his sanctuary of peaceful reading, Freed looked up to find the tall figure of his eldest brother, Hal, standing in the door frame and glancing at him with a stern expression on his face. Of course, in his one moment of insubordination, he needed to be caught red-handed. But the book was opened and its cover lay flat on the table; from where Hal stood at the door, it was not identifiable as fiction.“I was under the impression that your next lesson started in a few minutes.”

Before he answered, Freed let his left eye quickly wander towards the clock hanging above the door. “The lesson starts in thirteen minutes, brother.”

A slow nod of his head was the only sign of approval that Hal displayed, otherwise his features remained unmoving. He took a lot after their father in that regard, and Freed had recently started to suspect it was deliberate. Their father's and Coen's features were both harsh, both with strong noses and firm jawlines, faces that possessed a sort of natural authority. In Hal's case, he had inherited their father's nose, too, but his face's general sharpness was balanced by a little rounder cheeks and soft green eyes with long lashes, a trait inherited from their mother that Freed shared, too. What he lacked in physical similarities, however, Hal more than made up for by copying his father's mannerisms.

“I thought you and father were meeting with Count Balsamico”, Freed said, very aware of the book lying inconspicuously in front of him but still being a proof of his little moment of weakness.

“The Count retired after lunch, he is apparently used to afternoon naps”, Hal said, nearly managing to hide the scoff that had crept into his voice.

Freed, on his part, nearly managed to not smirk at the remark.

“I am very aware that your training has increased drastically during the last year”, Hal then said slowly, quenching the emerging levity. He had come nearer and tilted his head now such that the light from the windows reflected off of his glasses, making it impossible to see his eyes. It was another trait he had taken over from their father. “It is very commendable that you spent even the fewest amount of spare time in the library for additional studies.”

Suddenly, Freed felt an even stronger urge to hide his book. Hal still couldn't see its cover. But at the latest once Freed had to leave in less than three minutes, he would have to put it back into the shelf. Then Hal would see that the book was not meant for additional studies, and surely, his brother would be disappointed then.

“The additional training is necessary”, Freed said instead, like automatic, a sentence he had heard so often in the last months that it seemed an appropriate answer. Something in his right eye twitched, a dull pain that reminded him why exactly he had heard that sentence so often. “I must learn to control it.”

“A rare gift, indeed”, Hal replied, a bit of approval in his usually even voice. A year ago, it would have made Freed's day to hear his brother praise him in any form, but today, he couldn't feel it. “Make sure not to squander it.”

“I will”, Freed replied, and after another look on the clock, he realised that now was the time to leave the library, even if he technically still had a minute. “Excuse me, brother. I need to be going, my lesson starts soon.”

“Of course.”

Much to Freed's relief, Hal nodded curtly, and turned his attention to the shelf with the books on ancient languages of the western continents. Freed quickly closed his book, brought it back to its place behind his brother's back, and prepared to leave. “Until later, brother.”

It looked as if he needed to wait until after dinner if he wanted to find out what happened to the angel who had dared to rebel.

When he left the library, he was certain he heard Hal's voice muttering once more. “This is one of these fairy tales, is it not? Oh Freed, this will not help you.”

Freed pretended to haven't heard the disappointment in his brother's voice when he closed the doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to end this first chapter with a first thank you to everyone who has supported me during the time I have been writing this, especially my beta-readers: Shout-out to TalinMirengo and OharaLibrarianArtur for being awesome and reading this (in Talin's case without knowing a thing about Fairy Tail), a lot of encouragement and constructive comments that have helped me shape this into what it is today; something that I am really proud of and I had a hell of a time writing. Big thanks also to my very patient beta-listener :)  
> I hope you, dear reader, enjoy the ride as well! Feel free to leave any comments and criticism below :)


	2. Fall

Ten minutes were a lot of time to worry about one's actions, it seemed. The corridors of the castle were quiet and lonely apart from some servants, illuminated mostly by candles and much fewer windows than the library possessed. The silence and dim light made the throbbing in Freed's right eye die down a little. Pretending that Hal's disappointment didn't mean anything to him became harder, and now that he had time to think, Freed realised that he had just lied to his older brother.

He had known fully well that Hal would assume he had been studying when in fact he had been wasting his time reading fairy tales. He had known that, but hadn't objected or told Hal otherwise. He had been dishonest.

Dishonesty was against the rules of Freed's father, and Freed did not like doing anything that was against the rules. But for a very rebellious moment, he hadn't even cared.

Both Hal and Coen had not come this far because they had been lazy and spent their free time reading novels. Coen was even unusually quickly working his way up the ranks in the Rune Knight, and though he had only joined a year ago, the last time Freed had seen him during a brief visit in spring, he had already been assigned a little group of his own men. Hal and Coen were everything Freed attempted to be – talented, skilled wizards, well-educated; they had found their places in life and had earned the praise their father awarded them with.

To get where they were now, Freed still had a long way to go. A long way paved with studies, fencing and dancing classes, with learning to play the violin and of course, magical training. Always knowing that whatever he learned now, Hal and Coen had learned and mastered years ago. Nothing he did, nothing he achieved, truly surprised their father any more after already having two excellent sons. The only thing Freed knew he could always do was give it his absolute best. But effort alone never mattered, only excellence.

Freed always strived for excellence.

However, the last months had made it increasingly difficult for him to stay focussed all the time. At first, the condition that made it so had shown itself in what the doctors had attributed to migraines; a dull pain in his head and a sensitivity to light, as well as blurry vision that came and left in attacks. At one time, Freed had nearly impaled his own foot with his rapier when an attack had hit him during Fencing class. His father had not been amused.

It had been weeks until his condition had changed, until the pain had become increasingly concentrated on his right eye and the vision in his left eye had turned back to normal. However, the pain had also increased even more, becoming so strong that sometimes, Freed had felt as if his skull had been melting from where his eye sat in its socket. And then one day, when the pain had reached an all-time maximum, suddenly, Freed's world had quite literally turned dark. He still remembered trying to control the fear he had felt when during his Rune Magic class, his tutor had suddenly stared at him, his own eyes wide open and his jaw clenched, beads of sweat trailing down his forehead even though it had been winter. The way he had gawked at Freed as if the boy had been something fearful, together with the feeling that his eye was turning bigger and finally burning through his skull were the last things that Freed had seen before falling unconscious. He had woken up hours later with a throbbing pain in his right eye that now possessed a black eyeball and violet burning iris.

The doctors didn't have any idea what was going on, it was his Rune Magic tutor who finally found the solution to the riddle of Freed's right eye several painful days of cluelessness later: it was magic; a magical eye that gave Freed a set of new abilities that neither of his brothers possessed.

His tutor had called it the 'Eye of Darkness', his father had called it a rare gift. Freed wasn't certain what to call it himself, the only thing that had mattered in the months that had followed this discovery had been additional training sessions with a new tutor, an expert hired from a town far away on the coast of Fiore.

With time, he had learned that whatever his eye was, it granted him the ability to will the meaning of his runes into existence, in a much shorter, more direct way than his usual Rune Magic. He could make water boil by just commanding it to and writing the appropriate phrase on the kettle. Time had also made the pain decrease, stopped it from being blindingly strong, though it had never fully left, especially not when Freed overused his eye. But even with all the training he had received, Freed hadn't managed it to turn his eyes back to normal, no matter how much he had tried. He had taken to combing his hair over his eye to protect it from bright light, and himself from the curious looks of the castle staff.

On the better days, Freed considered the pain a small price to pay for his new abilities. There had been genuine surprise in his father's face as Freed had shown him for the first time that all it took for him make an object fly was a glance from his eye and a word written by his fingers. Hal and Coen had even smiled a little.

Freed knew his eye could do even more than that, and that feeling was both making him proud and extremely wary. There were rules when to apply normal magic and what for, but there were no rules about his eye. At least, not yet.

On the worse days, Freed found himself wondering if it was worth it. His new tutor had increased the number of lessons spent on training his eye per week, and thus Freed's Science and Art classes had been rescheduled to one of his formerly free days. Since then, he had found himself increasingly tired, and increasingly frustrated because things that once had been second nature to him – learning, doing his homework, practising, spending his free time on enjoyable language studies – cost him more and more effort until he didn't _want_ to do them anymore.

Currently, his tutor was showing him how to work magic on living beings with his eye. Freed was unsure how to feel about this, it certainly was a powerful feeling to give a cat magical wings and see it fly, but what would happen if he made a mistake?

Today, when he reached the study in which his magic practise lessons were being held, he had to admit that his first classes of the day had already taken a toll on him. He had been exposed to a lot of bright light especially during Fencing class, and no matter if he had closed his right eye all the time, it was still throbbing. The exhaustion ate away at his ability to concentrate properly, and additionally, he still felt bad because he had been dishonest to Hal in his lunch break. It wasn't so much the consequences that worried him as more the fact that Hal had been right, he should have been studying. He was still behind on his family's overall educational schedule, he had just received proof of it in the morning.

But there were days when keeping up with his schedule was harder than on others.

Half an hour into his training session, after some initial warm-up exercises, a cat with violet glowing magical wings flew through the castle's study, from Freed's desk right into the arms of his tutor, a middle-aged man by the name of Lorentz Rauckal.

“Very well, Master Freed”, he said while petting the cat on her head, not even the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. Freed found the poor creature looked frightened and for the lack of a better word, confused, after having been his unwilling test subject for several days now. “I see you have mastered the spell to my full satisfaction.”

His tutor made a little pause, searched his pockets and finally produced a little treat for his cat. The bit of pride swelling up in Freed's chest was instantly crushed, however, as his tutor's stern eyes flew over to him once more. He knew that look too well, it mostly boded ill. Hopefully it didn't have something to do with the poor cat, who had curled up on his tutor's desk and scrutinised Freed with intensely adverse looks. “It is time we raise the educational objective of these classes to the higher levels of what your magic can achieve, and that is affecting human beings.”

Freed noticed his heart suddenly beating in his throat – human beings? He kept his right eye closed behind his hair, his left eye focussed on his tutor.

“Sir, I am not certain that my training has already progressed far enough for this.” He did feel sorry for the cat, but he would prefer to take her as a test subject any time. The thought of casting his spells on a human being were... disconcerting.

His tutor, however, shook his head. “I am fully able to assess how far you have progressed, Master Freed”, he said coolly. “I am confident that you are _far enough_ to test out your magic on a human being.” With this, his tutor stood up from his desk, took off his coat and began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.

“But Sir...”, Freed said in a weak attempt to influence his tutor's decision. He remembered the first tries with the cat, when his power hadn't been enough to sustain the spell for long and the wings on the poor creature had disappeared mid-air... it was a good thing cats always landed on their feet, but humans didn't do the same. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Me? Don't be silly, boy”, the tutor chastised, and Freed suddenly felt bad for talking back. “You are not going to cast your spells on me, you are going to cast them on yourself.”

Freed's heart sank from his throat into a bottomless pit.

A voice in his head told him he wasn't ready for this, another that succeeding in this would make his family proud.

He already knew to which one he would listen.

 

\---

 

It didn't take Freed long to realise that not having solid ground under his feet was not something he particularly enjoyed experiencing. The first time the davenport had vanished below him he had promptly first lost his head and then his balance and had placed his posterior squarely on the sofa after falling down about half a metre.

At least the following repetition of this procedure – casting 'Wings' on himself, feeling an invisible force lift him from the sofa, losing either his balance or magic focus, then landing more or less elegantly on the sofa – was only hurtful for Freed's overall mood, and not his body. The few times he had nearly missed the davenport, his tutor had stirred him back, either with physical force or his own magic.

At this point, they had been going on for hours, according to the clock above the door. Slowly but steadily, Freed's eye had started feeling swollen again, and the dull pain seemed to have grown into a full migraine. A big part in practising his magic was to perfectly estimate the amount of power necessary to sustain its effect without overdoing it, but Freed still found this very hard the first times he tried out a new spell. Especially when the spell itself only ended up making him uncomfortable and float very ungracefully in the air for a few seconds.

“You applied too less magic power this time, Master Freed”, he heard his tutor say after his umpteenth attempt at flying had ended after not even twenty centimetres.

Freed knew it was forbidden to be insolent, but a part of him wanted to let his tutor know he could very well judge his own inability to accurately estimate magic power in a far less refined manner than could be considered polite.

“You may have decreased your magical output too much compared to the last time. As you have learned when you were practising with my cat, the necessary power is directly proportional...”

… _to the target's own weight and the gravity situation of the surrounding_ , continued a voice in Freed's head. He had not bothered yet to stand up from the sofa, had closed his eyes for a moment.

“... applying the rule of three, a conclusion from the power necessary for using the 'Wings'-spell on my cat and on yourself should be a very easy task. I think we should practise this once more. Follow me to the board, Master Freed.”

Unhappy to open his eyes, but relieved that he didn't need to try and fail to fly for a second, Freed took a last deep breath before he got up from the davenport and slowly crossed the room towards the black board that had been fixed behind the tutor's desk.

The process of thinking, however, in his current state of a severe migraine, posed another challenge.

“Assuming that the cat weighs... 5 kilograms... and I approximately ten times that amount...”

The chalk scratched on the slate surface, a very unpleasant sound. With every scrape, Freed's head throbbed a little harder. He found himself wishing for the evening to come sooner, thinking about the cherry tarlets waiting for him; but looking out of the window, the afternoon had not even ended.

“You have estimated your own weight to ten times that of my cat, why is it you now only write nine times?”  
The voice of his tutor was bare any emotions, a little cold even, but Freed felt the heat rushing into his cheeks nevertheless. Concentration was trickling through his fingers like sand. He needed to focus better – he thought back of Hal and Coen. _They wouldn't have a problem with this._

“I think I will need to contact your Mathematics teacher, Master Freed”, his tutor said after a few minutes in which the only sound had been the scratching of chalk on slate. “Your performance today is quite worrying.”

Freed felt even hotter in his face as he noticed that he had just divided one of his equations by zero. After correcting his mistake, he finally managed to arrive at what his tutor deemed the right result, namely that he needed to apply about 600 percent of the force he had needed for the cat.

Which was all very good to know in theory, but put to practise Freed still had no idea how exactly these 600 percent felt.

The afternoon sun shone bright orange through the window as Freed went back to the sofa on his tutor's request.

He couldn't even stop both his eyes from falling shut as another wave of pain shot through his head's right side.

\---

 

The light from outside had turned to red when Freed fell back on the davenport, panting heavily. His head felt like the sun; big and hot and red and burning, and he had still not managed to stay up in the air for longer than ten seconds.

“I fear you are not making any progress at all, Master Freed”, he heard his tutor say, a little like he was speaking through a wall. It was so far away compared to the seething pain his eye radiated that Freed didn't even feel guilty for having disappointed his tutor. Or maybe the exhaustion wiped away the guilt, it seemed to have that effect sometimes.

“Maybe if I could just take a little break, I would perform better next time”, he then heard his own voice, too empty to be surprised at his insolence.

“This lesson only lasts fifteen more minutes, and your father does not pay me for indulging in respite. He expects excellent work from me, and if I am not mistaken, from you, as well.”

A few seconds later, Freed found himself back in the air like automatic, another few seconds later back on his posterior.

Slowly, it all became a blur; a grey, empty mixture of rising and falling, glancing towards the clock only to find that not more than a minute had passed since the last time he had looked.

“How many more times do we have to go through this, you are using not enough power! This cannot be 600 percent, or your calculations are not exact. Considering your performance on the board, it may very well be the latter.”

Through the wall and the blur, a burning sensation spread through Freed's stomach that he faintly realised was anger.

He never acted on anger, it was one of his personal rules, and so he swallowed it and instead gave the practised spell another try without reacting to his tutor.

Pain was pulsing from his eye into his hand as he released another portion of his power, wondering where he still took that power from after the number of times he had used his magic today.

The letters forming the word 'Wings' in an ancient alphabet appeared on his arm, and Freed could feel the magical objects appearing on his back. He used them, and was lifted from the ground, a centimetre at first, then two, three...

Another pulse in his eye sent a shiver of pain into his head, his arms shot up, one to his right eye and one to his forehead to steady himself; but the rash movements only made him lose balance, and he fell onto the sofa once more.

His tutor was saying something and he sounded vaguely angry, but Freed didn't hear him any more.

It was too much, his head felt as if it would explode any second now. He buried his eyes behind his hands, creating a darkness that felt so soothing. For a moment, it seemed to work, and the sensation in his head became a little weaker, his thoughts a little clearer.

But so did the voice of his tutor. “... still enough time for another try. Apply as much power as you can muster this time, boy.”

When Freed tried to get up, his eyes rebelled against the light and his legs against standing.

 _As much as I can muster_...

It didn't feel as if it would be much, anyway. There was not much left in him, not much power and no focus. His head seemed to weigh a ton, he had to actively keep it from falling onto his chest.

He couldn't remember feeling so miserable at any point since his eye magic had started manifesting, this empty except for the pounding in his head and the burning in his face. He really didn't want to try again, he only wanted to fall into his bed and sleep, and hope that another day, he would do better.

But nothing in his life was determined by what he wanted; it were rules and duties that set his actions. He owed it to his father to learn how to master his magic, owed it to his brothers to give it his all and to live up to their accomplishments. And as long as his mind was willing, his body would need to follow.

His resolve indeed helped him to stand a little more steady, and pushed away a little of the blur inside his head. He had a last look at the clock, only five minutes left. This could probably be his last try for today, and the thought gave him a little more motivation.

There would only be Politics class in the evening, he was good in Politics, it wouldn't matter if he would be out of magical power then.

 _As much as I can muster_...

He tried to keep himself steady, took a deep breath and concentrated on the magic within himself, just like his Rune Magic tutor had told him to. It was harder to do whenever he felt the pain in his eye, particularly today, but he would not be hindered by this.

 _As much as I can muster_...

A wave of pain propagated from his eye into his body, but he ignored it, instead he rose his hand and channelled magic into his eye.

Another wave of pain broke his concentration, but he wrote the letters into the air nevertheless.

“I am positive it will work, Master Freed!”

He heard his tutor vaguely, as if he would be in a different room. He wanted to be glad that he was being encouraged, but...

… he knew something was wrong, very wrong, when the written letters hit his chest.

Panic rose within him like poison, he wanted to scream as not only his eye or his head, but his whole body began to burn and his skin felt as if it would melt. The pain became so blindingly strong, spreading from his pulsing right eye like a disease. It felt as if it even had a physical shape, reaching out for him and swallowing him whole; leaving only darkness behind.

“What are you doing, foolish boy! Stop this at once!”, his tutor cried somewhere far away.

Something, _someone_ , screamed out, a deep, rumbling growl like a beast.

The darkness was pure agony, but there was something more deep inside him, something even darker, even more agonising...

“Your father will hear about this, boy! This will be the last time I, or any other adept, will set a foot in this castle!”

There was fear in that voice and panic in that human face he looked down at. Good. A sudden rush of satisfaction washed over him, dark, precious satisfaction. Fear was just a little payment for all the torment and humiliation he had had to endure in the last months.

Something moved and a big, dark thing appeared in his vision, a claw maybe, he couldn't know; the world surrounding him was more a blur than it had ever been; pain and agony mixing with an anger he had never allowed himself to feel.

What did he care for rules now that he had so much more...

A feeling of foreign magic mixed into the blur of sensations, he vaguely registered the ignorant fool in front of himself trying to cast a spell. Pathetic.

Another agonising growl filled the room, leaving the walls shaking in its wake.

In the blink of an eye, he was flying.

In another, he was falling.

In the next, the darkness was gone, the veil of sensations was lifted from Freed's eyes, leaving behind only fear and panic rising up into his throat.

He didn't even scream. He just fell.

And Freed stood at the window, his eyes torn open with a horrifying realisation. He huddled down below the window as fast as he could, hands pressed against his wet cheeks and shaking like the world was ending right here, right now.

He didn't see his tutor's body hitting the ground. He only heard a terrible scream. It was like a catalyst, as if the last sign of life from his tutor had woken up unknown forces inside his exhausted body.

The next thing he remembered was that he ran down the stairs of the tower, away from the study and the corridors, running into servants here and there and ignoring them all, down the bridge over the lake that led to their castle, as if he could leave behind what he knew in his heart was true.

He had just thrown his tutor out of the window.

Not in all of Freed's fourteen years and forty-six weeks had he imagined that he could fall so deep.


	3. Run

Night had already fallen when Freed's feet and legs finally gave in.  
He had run all the way down the mountains, passing a few people without really seeing them. His mind had made attempts to try and think about what had just happened, but there was only enough room within him for one feeling right now, and that feeling erased everything else: fear.

When he fell onto his knees close to the river coming down from the mountains, a little away from the main road, all the bones in his body, all the muscles, hurt and ached as if he would never stand up again. When he lay there, face first in the grass, there was nothing left within him; for a little while, not even fear.

He came back to his senses soon enough, and sat up once the throbbing in his feet had stopped. Unfortunately, though, his small break had calmed him down, enough so that when the fear came back, it wasn't strong enough any more to suppress his mind.

What had happened, what had he done?

He still could hear the agonising screams and growls, now clearer then ever. He could still feel fear and darkness reaching out for him, nearly as if the night itself was out to swallow him. He still remembered the things he had felt, the things he had thought as... as _it_ had happened. How had he even been able to feel them, to think them?

How had he been able to end a life?

The full weight of his deeds and thoughts came crushing down on him. He had ended a life. Had killed someone. His tutor was dead now, because of his actions, and his actions alone. The rules of Freed's family forbade needless violence, what would his father say? Hal's face appeared before his eyes, disappointed, even angry, unable to hide it behind his glasses. What would they... they would... But Freed hadn't wanted to, he hadn't wanted to put an end to his tutor's life, it just... it had just... happened. Where there rules for these cases? Would he be punished in retaliation, what could he possibly do to atone?

What kind of monster would kill a human being and then brush it off thinking _it had just happened?_

He was back on the ground, hands stemmed into the grass, crying and sobbing. He was a monster. He could have been someone great, but he had broken everything, and now... what happened to those who broke the rules?

A moment later, he found himself crawling to the river. He needed to see it, the face of the monster.

But he was disappointed, the only thing the river showed, disturbed by the moving water, was his own face; not really a child's face but not that of an adult, either, and a shock of green hair around it in a now very unruly braid.

No fangs, no horns, no red skin; not even a black eyeball with a glowing iris, even his magical eye had disappeared. There was just a human face, just Freed Justine; a scared boy with green irises and white eyeballs swollen from crying and dirty cheeks from lying on the ground.

Even his clothes were tattered here and there, the arms of his shirt torn at the hems, and the collar looked as if it had been torn open by force.

For the first time in what seemed like many, many hours, Freed's mind was able to form a coherent thought: He couldn't remember tearing his clothes apart. He couldn't imagine how it could have happened, not when everything he had done had been running... It was then that he realised that he _had_ seen something unusual as _it_ had happened, something big and dark, something like the claw of a beast. And hadn't the screams that he had heard been like the screams of a monster? And had he not looked _down_ on his tutor before...?

Something closely resembling excitement welled up inside him, like it always did when he thought to have discovered something important. He remembered the pain now, the feeling as if his skin had burned off his flesh... what if...

What if the Eye of Darkness had somehow transformed him into a monster? What if the anger, the hatred, the madness he had felt... what if that was what the monster had felt, and he had had to share it?

The thought was comforting in a way, but deeply unsettling in another. If the eye had done that to him... what had caused it? Could it happen again? Was he a danger for all the people around him, a monster just waiting to break loose and cause pain and destruction to those who dared to oppose him?

Or even worse, what if the eye just brought out what was hidden deep inside him, a darkness, a different side of him, that he just never allowed to break free? Were the rules made to suppress these darker urges, was that why they needed to be obeyed without question?

And what if deep inside himself, Freed genuinely _was_ a person who killed people for no apparent reason?

How could he ever trust himself again if that was what he was really about?

\---

 

When Freed woke up, the sun was already rather high up in the sky. He had fallen asleep under a tree, too paralysed by his own thoughts and fears to decide on a course of action. It hadn't been a particularly refreshing sleep, haunted by monstrous screams and yellow eyes, claws and fangs and the expression of pure horror on the face of his tutor. Only in the early morning he had found a deeper sleep, even if only for some hours.

With the sun illuminating the world around him, Freed, for the first time since the events of the day before, felt even remotely like himself. And still, he had no idea what to do now.

The mere thought of going back home to his father and brothers, and worst of all, the evidence of his abominable deed, made his insides twist painfully. He knew there needed to be consequences for what he had done... but would they believe him? Would they accept that it had been his eye that had turned him into a monster, even if he wasn't quite sure himself? Would they lock him away?

Maybe, if they would just remove his eye, everything would turn back to normal, to the way it had been before it had started manifesting. Back then, everything had been fine.

But what if that wouldn't solve the problem, what if the monster, once awakened inside him, would come back? Or if it hadn't been the eye at all?  
Time went by while Freed was crouching under the same tree he had spent the night, unsure and frantically searching for answers to the many questions in his head that only seemed to get more.

“Dammit, that way up and down that mountain is fucking long”, a deep, rumbling voice suddenly said. “Can't the old fart just come down if he wants something from us?!”

Freed nearly jumped up, held himself back just in time.

“Shut your trap, you sound like a whiny little girl. The old man paid us for coming up that mountain, and now he's paying us to go back down. As long as there's money in it, I ain't complaining”, said a second voice, a little higher but just as rough.

Freed was comparatively small and thin for his age, and the tree was comparatively thick. So whatever made him do it, an instinct most likely, hiding behind the tree was not difficult for him. Carefully, he looked around the trunk to the main road, where a little company of half a dozen men wearing light leather armour and heavy boots passed by in that moment. A dark symbol was burned into the chest pieces of their armour, the sign of a guild of sorts. Freed knew those from books he had read. If these people came down the mountains they came from...

“He ain't paying us for walking up and down fucking mountains”, the first man said, a short, heavy looking fellow with a very rough, dark beard and eyes hidden behind bushy eyebrows. “So I say the sooner we find that rascal, the better. I hate legwork.”

“You've got the wrong job then, man”, drawled the second voice, belonging to a taller man with red hair cropped very short and freckles spreading over his face like red ink blotches on parchment. “But that rascal can't be far, so this one is going to be easy.”

Little rascal... it couldn't possibly be that these men were sent by his father to find him? They had swords attached to their belts, one even an axe, and bows on their back!

Thinking about it for only a second, Freed realised that he should have expected his father to act, and quickly. But only judging by the looks of the men, by their weapons gleaming in the sunlight... was that how his father thought about him now? Freed felt his heart turning into a big, throbbing lump; wondering if he would have expected something else instead. After all, he was a murderer.

Maybe it was best if he just handed himself over to the men. Nobody should escape the punishment rightfully inflicted on him.

A dark, nearly growling laughter rose him from his thoughts once more. The shorter of the two talking men was the source of the quite fearsome sound. “You're right there, mate. A spoiled brat born with a silver spoon in his mouth won't even come this far. He's just had one night, probably slept through it. Bet he's not farer than an hour's walk from here.”

Something inside Freed's stomach knotted together; with all his thoughts of going home, he wasn't sure if he wanted _this men_ to find him. Maybe it was caution, maybe it was that neither his father nor his brothers had a positive opinion on guilds and their members. It frightened him that his father had resorted to asking a guild, of all things, for help; and that the red-haired man now unsheathed his sword as if to test its sharpness didn't soothe him, either.

Instinctively, Freed's hands went to his belt, but his own rapier was lying forlorn in his room, back in the castle up in the mountains. He never took it with him when he attended his lectures.

“You think he's going to make it difficult?” There was an almost wistful undertone to the voice of the man as if he...

“Hope he does!”, said the man with the bushy brows, one hand wandering to his bow. “I need a little fun after running up and down that mountain!”

When both broke into another toenail-curling laughter, Freed couldn't try to suppress a horrified gasp and stumbled a bit, away from the tree. But a thick tree like this one was bound to possess thick roots as well. Freed's feet found one of them in his way before he saw it, and the boy yelped much too loudly when he nearly lost his balance.

“You hear that?”, said the redhead, and suddenly, six men were turned towards him. Freed had jumped to another side of the tree, pressing his lips firmly together and nearly forgetting to breathe.

“Probably a squirrel”, said one of the other men in the company.

“Squirrel's ain't squeaking like that”, said the man with the bushy eyebrows darkly. “Nope, that was a human voice.”

Suddenly utterly aware of his surroundings, Freed heard the grass swishing and heavy footsteps on the road. _Just turn around..._

“C'mon little squirrel”, the dark voice almost singsonged. Another voice laughed sharply. The swishing of grass came nearer. “Show yourself!”

Seconds went by like hours, and Freed's mind was dangerously blank. He was very low on magic, and together with his missing rapier, it made him feel terribly vulnerable. He had to think of something, or they would find him... and Freed did certainly not want to know what kind of 'fun' they could have with him and their weapons.

The footsteps on the main road came to a halt. “What a funny little squirrel we have here.”

Freed's glance shot to the road, where the redhead now stood, in plain sight; his sharp eyes and sword pointing at Freed. On the other side of the tree, the heavy man with the bushy brows appeared, an axe drawn.

He didn't even have time to think that it was over, his feet acted quicker than his mind. Like on instinct, Freed stormed forward, fully knowing that the company could see him even clearer now, and horribly aware that three of them had bows drawn.

“Oi, he's trying to flee!”

He didn't hear them running behind him, he simply knew they were. The man with the bushy eyebrows wasn't looking particularly fast, though.

In a hasty movement, Freed threw a barrier behind himself as he heard an arrow whizzing and hitting the ground where one of his feet had been only a second ago. It wasn't a particularly strong barrier given his current low on magic power, but the next few arrows were repelled. Temporarily relieved, he put a little more thought into his second barrier, one that was meant to prevent the men from running into his direction.

It seemed to work, as shortly afterwards, he heard a dull sound, like a heavy body hitting a wall.

“Oh, a magical squirrel he is. See that guys? Green hair and Rune Magic. That's our payment right there.”

They couldn't reach him. Freed trusted that particular barrier, and the thought was relieving, however...

“Looks like you trapped yourself there, squirrel”, said the redhead in between a harsh, mirthless laughter, echoed by his men.

Freed's heart sank into his stomach. In front of him was the river coming down from Lake Saffron, the big, fast river Iris that ran towards the capital and then through half of Fiore.

Behind him was a group of men armed to their teeth. The man with the bushy eyebrows had already sat down in front of his barrier, a big grin on his face and a whetstone in his hand. His axe was lying on his lap, gleaming in the sunlight and showing that it definitely didn't need to be sharpened.

Freed really had no choice. And for just this once, luck was on his side.

He tried not to think about it twice when he jumped into the waters, ignoring his pounding heart and the screams of the men behind him.

The current pushed him under water a few times, swimming in a river was nothing like swimming in the still lake. But whether it was luck or skill, it didn't take him long to grab onto the dead tree trunk floating in the river. He had seen it coming down from the mountains, and holding onto it, he finally felt the tension leaving his body.

The river flowed much faster than men could run.

 

\---

 

For as long as possible, Freed kept on focussing back to the mountains while clinging onto the tree trunk. He had seen the company running down the river after him for a while, but after some turns, his eyes had finally lost them.

Still, he couldn't stay on the river forever. First and foremost because he was getting cold and his fingers numb, but also because the flatter the land got and the wider the river grew, the slower it became. After a while, there was no advantage in travelling this way any more. And so, when the river reached the outskirts of Crocus and had already slowed down significantly, Freed let go of the trunk and swam towards the bank.

He had been to Crocus several times with his family; he had seen it on maps, too. If his memory served him well, the area that stretched out in front of him now was mostly populated by farmers. He still had no idea what to do exactly, or where to go – but certainly he needed to go somewhere, or else the men sent after him would find him sooner or later.

A nagging voice in his head told him it would be much simpler if he would go back to his father, or search for Coen's regiment and hand himself over to the authorities. Invigorated by his escape, even if it was probably temporary, he decidedly ignored the voice this time, instead he cast runes on the ground that dried his clothes and took the heart to start walking towards the city. He would find a way to cover his tracks there, surely. And then he would think about what to do, he would not let these men get their hands on him.

It turned out that a young boy with fine, but tattered clothing and a dishevelled braid drew quite a bit of attention to himself. Freed noticed many eyes staring at him, and he didn't quite like the feeling. Not even the eyes of the kindly elder ladies and farmer's wives who looked at him rather pitifully. They only reminded him of Constance, and feeling that she would be disappointed in him, too, was nearly worse than thinking of his father. One woman even offered to take him in for a while, assuming he had lost tracks of his family after a storm that had apparently raged two nights ago. He was thankful, but declined with a burning head and a growling stomach.

He didn't deserve pity and compassion, not after what he had done. Not when he wasn't sure if his eye would become active once more someday. It didn't hurt at the moment, but Freed was certain he hadn't seen the last of it yet. He was a danger to those around him, maybe he shouldn't even be in Crocus. There were too many people he could hurt when the Eye of Darkness surfaced again, when...

A shiver went through him every time his thoughts drifted back towards his eye, towards the castle, and the events of the last evening that seemed so awfully far away, so awfully _wrong_ , as if taken from one of his novels, and not from his life.

What happened to the angel who rebelled against his brethren? Freed would probably never find out. He was certain it wasn't something pleasant, though.

It was past noon when the alleys and streets grew darker from the shadows of the now denser standing houses, when something he couldn't quite pinpoint became more urban, and less rural. Less people looked at him, most were hurrying through the streets, minding their own business. He couldn't say he disliked that he was ignored, though it made walking through town an even more pointless and aimless endeavour.

For a while, he had his hands in his pockets, just staring at his feet and trying to ignore the louder growing growling in his stomach. He hadn't eaten in about a day, which was certainly a novelty. However, he had no money on himself, so there were no options for him to get food lest he came across an apple tree or the like that belonged to nobody else.

Aimless and miserable, at least his mind had turned blissfully blank for a time.

“Well, well, well... What have we here? What does a squirrel do in a town like this one?” For the second time that day, a deep growling voice made Freed jump.

Not looking where he went had been a bad idea, it seemed... he had landed in a dark alley, and in front of him stood a stocky man with bushy eyebrows, arms crossed on his chest. Even beyond that beard of his, Freed could see him grin.

Sharpening his senses, Freed realised that the red-headed man was also there, a little further down the alley, his sword in hand. The others surely weren't far.

How could they have found him here, in the maze of streets and alleys that was Crocus?

Not thinking twice, Freed turned on his feet and threw a barrier behind himself.

The man with the bushy eyebrows only laughed.

“See for how long you can keep this up, squirrel!”

Only now did Freed realise that the people in this part of town did not only not pay attention; most of them had even vanished completely! The alleys had become smaller and darker, windows and shutters were closed and dirt was lying all around. He had not paid attention for far too long, it seemed.

Another archer appeared to his right, he cast another arrow-repelling barrier. The redhead was closest behind him, followed by another rather stern looking man with big, round glasses who Freed hadn't paid attention to before. The bushy-browed man was farther behind it seemed.

Blindly, Freed ran from street to street and alley to alley, trying to gain an advantage, casting barrier after barrier with as much power as he could muster, however little that turned out to be.

The company was better organised than he was, though, it seemed; when Freed thought himself safe for only a second, it didn't take them long to appear again on either side of him.

No matter where this was going, there was no possibility he could escape them forever. Sooner or later, this chase was going to end, especially since he was burning down the little bits of magical energy he had left. It was a miracle they hadn't hurt him up until that point.

Though they drew closer it seemed, appearing left and right as if they were a group of a hundred, and not only six persons.

Freed knew he had made a mistake as soon as he had set his foot into another alley that had at first appeared temptingly dark, like a perfect hiding spot. The reason for the darkness turned out to be a wall on the other side of the street, more than three meters high and impossible to climb, even if Freed wouldn't have been exhausted, hungry and in a hurry.

“Come out and play, squirrel!”, cried the voice of the redhead behind him, but Freed only stood in the dead-end street, eyes torn open and panting heavily. His brain was running, trying to find a solution – he could fly over that wall if he only could use the Eye of Darkness properly, but that was out of question. He could use another barrier, but then he would trap himself, unluckily this time. There was no open window, except for one on the third level of one of the buildings. There were only piles and piles of rubbish and a wall.

It was over, maybe it was even better that way.

His breathing became quicker, he turned so that he faced the entrance of the alley, stumbling back step by step; already making out the shadows of his followers, their snickering, their growling laughter.

“Looks like we got you, squirrel!”, cried the bushy-browed man, clearly out of breath.

He would turn around the corner every second now. It was over, he felt the urge to scream just to vent the frustration and fear of what would happen next.

He never managed to, however; as a firm, hard something closed over his mouth in the blink of an eye, making it impossible for him to utter any kind of sound. A harsh movement followed and Freed found himself yanked behind a pile of rubbish, the acidic feeling of fear and panic burning in his veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left a note/kudos/likes/reblogs either here on my tumblr; this means a lot to me!


	4. Green

Freed's chest was heaving so quickly as if he had just swum through the entirety of Lake Saffron. His eyes were torn open, but the alley was so dark that he could hardly see a thing, not his followers, not his attacker. It was a person that had yanked him behind that pile of rubbish, Freed was sure of it. He owed that insight to the unsettling feeling of a warm body behind himself, one arm tightly wrapped around his stomach, the other around his head, one hand pressing his mouth shut.

In the first few seconds, the shock of the other person appearing had been enough to make him compliant with his attacker's harsh actions, but now that he slowly came back to his senses, he began to struggle against the arms that were keeping him in a lock. To no avail, though. Whoever was holding him was taller than Freed was, and certainly physically stronger.

“Keep still”, a rough voice muttered into his ear, not very friendly, but less aggressive than Freed would have anticipated.

Something moved behind him, and the hand on his mouth closed even harder. Breathing through his nose was getting more difficult by the second, and he considered just kicking the person behind him. But then, he heard something that changed his mind: “C'mon squirrel, where are you?”

It was the bushy-browed man, closer than before. Whoever it was that held Freed captive stopped breathing, and just intuitively, he did the same. He could feel his heart beating in his throat, and suddenly, everything went so silent that he could have heard a needle drop.

“Don't you see that wall, shit-for-brains?”, the redhead called, and the man with the bushy eyebrows growled rather loudly.

“And?!”, he barked back.

“If he'd be in there, we'd have seen it. No way he got over that wall.”

“True”, the other man resigned. “No need to get so personal though, carrot-head.”

Freed couldn't believe his ears; the footsteps, the noises... they were _leaving_.

Several tense seconds later in which he still held his breath, the grip on his mouth and stomach weakened all at once.

Overwhelmed by his sudden freedom, Freed gasped for breath, stumbling forward.

“If you scream, I'm gonna cut your throat”, the rough voice said behind him, and every bit of relief or positivity about his second successful escape that day was squeezed out of him as fast as it had come. Freed instantly froze in his tracks, nearly forgetting to breathe again.

There was still the attacker to deal with, and no way he could escape now. He had jumped from the frying pan right into the fire.

A barrier was the only solution; a nice, well thought-out barrier and then he had to make a run for it, into the opposite direction in which the company had gone, back through town, towards the river... maybe it was best he left Crocus and followed it further down the land...

“Shit, stop wetting your pants, man. I'm not gonna cut your throat if you don't scream, okay?”

Freed wasn't sure if it was the slight amusement in the other voice that made him do it, but before he could think again, he found himself straightening his back, and turning around to face his attacker with as much dignity as he could muster.

For a second, he wished he hadn't. A figure stood in a dark corner of the alley; a tall, thin and long-limbed figure in ragged clothing, grey as the walls of the houses and covered over and over in dirt. His face was half-hidden by a particularly tightly wrapped and no less grey bandage, leaving only a thin-lipped smirk, a mess of dark hair and one eye visible. That eye, though, was probably more unsettling than the bandages, the rags and the dirt combined: motionless and focussed on a spot slightly behind Freed. Its iris was coloured in a green that was like nothing he had ever seen before, it was too bright and too yellow and practically glowing on its own. Whoever it was, he looked more like a mummy from a horror novel than a living being.

Freed was left so shocked that he couldn't decide what to do, instead, he just stared at the figure in the dark, something that didn't go unnoticed.

“What?! You saw a ghost or something?”, the mummy barked, but didn't do anything else than cross wiry arms on his chest.

“What? No! I... I beg your pardon. I was just... I won't scream. I promise”, Freed stammered, still unsure about the whole situation and barely bold enough to speak at all.

“Yeah, right”, the mummy muttered sarcastically. “You still look like the screaming kind. And now piss off. This is my alley, understood? There's not enough room for both of us.”

After the initial shock had worn off a little, the words in Freed's head finally began to form coherent sentences again, at least short ones. “For both of us? Your alley?”

“Yeah? What's not clear about that? Are you retarded or something?”

A cold and hot shiver washed down Freed's back, as the one eye of the mummy suddenly looked directly at him. It felt most unpleasant; too intense somehow, but stopped immediately when the mummy looked away. It was probably for the best if he left as quickly as possible.

“What... whatever do you mean, your alley? Do you live here?”

As an answer, the mummy laughed so shrilly that it made Freed cringe and someone in one of the houses close the last opened window with a loud bang. “Yeah, obviously?”

Only now Freed became aware of a niche between a crate on the other side of the alley and a wall, where a thin looking blanket and something akin to a pillow made out of old newspapers were lying. It was a pitiful sight.

“My humble abode”, the mummy continued sarcastically, following Freed's glance. “So if you came to share, I've gotta say – thanks, but no thanks.”

“I think I am the one who needs to voice his gratitude”, Freed found the courage to say, while still looking at the makeshift bed on the other side of the street. “Willingly or not, you saved me from my pursuers.”

The mummy erupted into another shrill laugh. Freed's gaze was torn back to the other person, who now lounged on one of the rubbish piles as if it was a throne. It was true he hadn't been away from his father's castle often and thus hadn't met many other people, but something about this person, this mummy, was truly disconcerting.

“So they _were_ after you, after all.”

Keeping his eyes firmly on the mummy, Freed took several deep, calming breaths. Right at the moment, the mummy, however unsettling, didn't seem to be dangerous – and Freed couldn't spot a weapon on his belt. Maybe there were other ways to leave this alley than using his magic. “Yes. Who did you assume they were after?”

“A group of Red Minotaur mercenaries? Oh I've no idea”, the mummy scoffed, and dramatically flung his shaking head into his hands. “Seriously, are you rich kids all that stupid?”

After the initial shock at his unexpected rescuer had worn off completely, the mummy's words finally reached Freed as what they were – insults. He coughed a little before he raised his voice. “I have you know that I am very well-read. I am _not_ stupid.”

A shrill laugh echoed back and forth between the walls of the houses. “Then you're naïve, that's not much better”, the mummy said in between fits of mirthless giggles. “No idea where you're coming from, but where I live Red Minotaur is known for taking any kind of job, including hunting down criminal kids.”

He accompanied his words by pointing at himself with both index fingers, but Freed didn't pay attention. “Are they known to be violent?”

“Yeah? I mean, they're mercs, right; that's a condition for that job?”

Freed's heart fell down into his stomach another time, and he sank onto his knees, ignoring the rubbish on the ground. He had been right to flee them, if the mummy was to be believed. This didn't soften the blow that was knowing that his father had resorted to hiring violent mercenaries to find him, however. It had to speak volumes about how Freed's father was currently thinking about his youngest son. What would happen should he go back? Would his father try to act merciful, would he even try to understand? Or had he already formed his opinion, was it already too late?

“Oi, moss-head!”, the scratchy voice of the mummy roused him from his thoughts, and when he looked up from the ground, he saw the other person in a squatting position maybe a foot away from him, a sickly green eye just barely not looking at him.

One eye, it always seemed to come down to one eye.

There was a seemingly uncharacteristic softness in that one eye, though. “You okay?”

Only now did Freed realise that he had been on the verge of tears, and quickly collected himself, a strange feeling inside him that wasn't completely unpleasant.

“I... I am going to be fine”, he said, trying to sound as self-assured as he wanted to be. He still had no idea where to go, but he couldn't stay here. He rose to his feet, followed every centimetre by the mummy who lifted first his head and then straightened up, as well.

The top of Freed's head didn't even reach the mummy's chin, but even so, seeing the other person so close made Freed realise that he was really young, too; a bit older than Freed was, maybe seventeen at the most; and that he smelled just as awful as the rest of the alley.

“Let me express my gratitude again for your help”, Freed began, trying in vain to dust off some dirt from his shirt. “I do not wish to bother you any longer, though I do need a plan to get rid of my pursuers first before I can safely leave. I would appreciate it very much if I could take advantage of your hospitality for another few hours. I will not scream, I promise.”

The mummy looked down at him, the one half of his eyebrow that was visible beneath his bandage lifted. “You make it sound as if this is some kinda castle”, he muttered, sounding somewhat bashful. “It's piles of trash and crates, that's what it is. Take it or leave it, as long as you don't wanna sleep here.”

The mummy shrugged his lanky shoulders and receded towards the blanket and the pillow behind the crate, lay down on the ground with his arms crossed behind his head and stared into the sky.

Feeling oddly thankful, Freed went back to the pile where the mummy had hidden him, sat down and began to think. He didn't want the mercenaries to find him, now more than ever, and more than ever, he was unsure about what to do, and where to go. He could not stay here, so much was clear. The monster within him was dormant for the time, but who knew for how long it would stay that way?

\---

 

No matter how he looked at it, Freed's situation was hopeless.

It wasn't only that he had no idea where to go, additionally, his knowledge of the world outside the mountains and maybe Crocus was fairly limited and more of a theoretical nature. The mercenaries were still after him, and following his two lucky escapes today, the chances of a third were rather low. Additionally, now that his adrenaline level was sinking, he realised once more how exhausted and – most of all – hungry he was. He hadn't eaten in a day and was dangerously low on magic energy; whatever minimal amounts he had regained during his scarce sleep had already been diminished by his headless use of magic during the chase. He was also without his rapier. Staying for longer until his magic power had returned fully was out of question, as the mummy had already told him multiple times that there was no way he would share his alley with Freed.

Not that Freed was particularly eager to sleep in between piles of rubbish. Once he had grown used to everything a little, the alley seemed rather bland apart from the sheer amounts of awful smelling waste and some old crates. It certainly was a pitiful area to dwell in. If it would come as far as that Freed would have to live on the streets, he would make sure to find a better place to spend his time, though the thought didn't please him at all. If he could avoid it, staying on the streets was not his first choice as a course of action. That was, if he even had a chance to choose.

There were rules about what to do with people like him, and even after all that had happened, he didn't know if he could break them, or if he even wanted to. It was nearly unbelievable what had happened during the last hours, it wasn't even a day at that point.

After drawing diagrams of possibilities into the dirt on the ground for the umpteenth time, to no avail, Freed let out a disheartened sigh and fell back from his crouching position so that he now lent onto the pile of rubbish behind himself.

From somewhere above him, someone sniggered. “Frustrated doing your maths?”

The mummy was sitting on the wall, swinging his long legs back and forth, his odd eye looking just barely away as Freed's eyes shot up to him. He never seemed to make eye contact.

Not to mention that the wall was indeed about three and a half meters high. “How did you get up there?”, it escaped Freed, unable to suppress the slightest hint of awe.

“I jumped, how else?”, the mummy replied, in between another fit of laughter.

“I... I didn't even hear you!”

“You were busy with your maths there, no wonder you didn't notice.”

“But it's nearly... twice your own height!”

“Yeah...?”, the mummy drawled, obviously genuinely confused as to why someone would find it wondrous that he could jump that high.

“That's... impressive”, said Freed earnestly, causing the mummy to turn his head away rashly.

“It's nothing. Tell me, what's it you're drawing there? Escape plans?”

“Option diagrams”, Freed replied plainly, feeling another surge of disappointment and hopelessness washing over him.

“With that much erasing, I guess you either have way too many or none at all”, the mummy said.

“The latter...”, Freed admitted in defeat.

For a moment, both stayed silent. Freed stared down on his latest diagram, disheartened once more; the mummy seemed to have shifted his attention to the sky again.

Freed was just about to go back to his diagrams, start anew, when a loud grumbling reminded him once more how hungry he was, and a shrill laughter from above him that he was not alone.

With red cheeks, he turned his head up again to see the mummy holding his own stomach, laughing so wildly that his tongue was hanging out. “Hungry, moss-head?”, he said finally.

Freed's face felt unnaturally hot, and he tried his best to look somewhere else.

“Ah damn, I'm a good boy, right?”, said the mummy after his laughter had fully died down. “I'm gonna be back in a bit, don't move, okay?”

And then, Freed didn't even trust his eyes, he simply let himself fall backwards, head first, torso and legs following. When he heard a dull impact from the other side of the wall, Freed found himself on his feet instantly, shocked.

“What happened? Are you unharmed?”, he cried.

He was truly relieved when the by then vaguely familiar sound of a wild laughter echoed down the alley. “You seriously need to stop wetting your pants about everything, buddy”, he heard the mummy say from the other side of the wall.

Assuming it was for the best if he simply did what he had been asked to do, Freed sat back down, leaning back onto his pile of rubbish and started another diagram.

 

\---

 

It took the mummy about half an hour to return, in which Freed had busied himself with another futile attempt at drawing a functioning option diagram. At least this half an hour had been mildly successful, in a sense that Freed had come up with a rather complicated conditioning plan for a barrier that should secure his safe escape no matter where the company was currently located, and had already tried out some of the runes.

The mummy came back the same way he had left, over the wall. At first, Freed hadn't heard him approaching and only looked up when a thud next to the wall made him abandon his previous pursuits. The noise had come from an object wrapped in a dotted tablecloth, but before Freed could examine it further, a torso appeared above the wall. The mummy was pulling himself up now, torso first, legs following, until he sat on the wall once more and grinned down towards Freed. He leaped without a second glance, hit the ground and then rolled forwards before got back up onto his feet, the grin only growing broader.

The jump had looked elegant, somehow graceful, something Freed hadn't expected at all from someone so gawky.

“Ta-Da!”, the mummy promptly announced himself, and Freed felt tempted to applaud, but refrained from it.

The next thing he knew was that the mummy fetched the dotted tablecloth and started fidgeting with a knot. Once he had opened it, he threw something at Freed, which, at a closer inspection, turned out to be half a loaf of dry bread and a fraction of a cheese wheel.

Ignoring Freed's confused expression, the mummy jumped onto one of the crates, and began eating an identical looking share of food.

“Where do you have that from?”, Freed asked, before he realised that he was being impolite. “I meant to say: I am very grateful to you. I'm truly very hungry.”

He had never expected something as simple as a loaf of bread to smell that good. He ripped off a smaller piece, somewhat delighted to be eating with his hands and not cutlery, something his father would never have allowed.

“Stole it, of course!” The first bite of bread nearly got stuck in Freed's throat when he heard the mummy proudly proclaim how exactly he had obtained the food.

Hungry or not, he couldn't eat the bread and cheese in that case. He swallowed the one bite he had already in his mouth, and put the food an arm's length away on the ground, his stomach protesting against it.

“One bite's enough and you're full? You're strange”, commented the mummy, gleefully munching on his share of cheese.

“It is forbidden to steal. Consequently, it is forbidden to eat stolen food.”

This time, he had already expected the shrill laughter that filled the alley a heartbeat later. “Now that's just crazy. Who runs away from home expecting _not_ to eat stolen food?”

Freed felt another blush creeping up on his cheeks. “It's not that simple”, he muttered. “Life is full of rules that need to be obeyed, no matter where you are. And I never said I ran away from home.”

“You're a kid in fancy clothes fleeing from mercs, so what else should you do out here? Survival training? But who cares. If you don't want that stuff, I'm gonna help myself to your share, too. Haven't had much the last days, either.”

“You shouldn't. Stealing is against the law”, Freed said, trying to sound firm, but realising how hypocritical it was coming from the mouth of someone who had just killed.

“Yeah, whatever. Starving is against my personal laws, too, you know. I'd rather live off stolen food than die an _honourable person_ ”, the mummy retorted, making his last words sound awfully dramatic.

The world, as marginally brighter as it had become during the bit of time he had spent with the mummy, suddenly turned much darker again. Was that his future? Did he really have to decide between being an honourable, good person and surviving? Or was it too late for that all, had he already squandered his chance in life to be a good human being after what he had done the day before?

“Seriously, buddy. Are all you rich kids that stupid?”, the mummy asked, leaping down from his crate to grab the food Freed had discarded. Freed heard an unknown sympathy in his voice, though it did nothing to lighten his mood.

For the first time in his life, Freed truly felt lost, with nowhere to go, and now even no idea of how to live his life from now on. It was strange that only a few hours with that odd mummy had shown him just how different life away from his father's castle was. “I don't know many other children that well, so I have no one to compare to”, he made himself answer, to at least not lose the conversation again.

“What? There're no other kids where you come from?” There was utter disbelief in the mummy's voice.

“Just my brothers, but they are much older than I am and hardly count as children”, Freed answered, but thinking back of his brothers hurt. The only thing that came to his mind now, just to say something, was so banal he began to think it unnecessary. But he had always been polite, always been taught to be, and if there was even a small chance he was still allowed to be like that, he wanted to take it. “I have only realised I have not introduced myself properly”, he said.

The mummy answered with half a raised brow, and his mouth hanging open. “Now where's that coming from?”, he asked.

“I should have done so a while ago, so I have to beg your pardon...”

While he spoke, the feeling that something was very, very wrong slowly crept up from his toenails through his veins. The mummy had stopped looking goofy in the middle of Freed's last words, and had turned his head to the alley's free entrance. Slowly, an expression of shock had appeared in the one visible eye and the mummy let the bread he had been holding drop to the ground.

“So there was someone here, after all”, said a dark, heavy voice that Freed knew all too well. It couldn't be. “You must be one of the squirrel's friends, bandage-face. Now... where were we? Come out and play, squirrel! You left us waiting!”

Freed felt frozen on the spot, a shaking moving through him as if the temperature had just dropped by several degrees.

The mummy, however, seemed to get back to his wits quicker. “Stay quiet”, he muttered, and only now Freed noticed that he was still hidden behind the pile of rubbish.

“Gotta go to the park if you're looking for squirrels, geezer”, the mummy said loudly.

“Interesting”, the bushy-browed mercenary said smugly. “You're covering for him now, aren't you? Don't play dumb, I know he's here. I smell you little runts from a mile away.”

Freed felt increasingly frustrated. He couldn't go on like this, running away only to be found again, reliant on luck and other people's cleverness instead of his own.

“Look around you. Looks like any squirrels want to share that alley of trash with me?”

“Oh, so you're a feisty one. Dealing with you might even be more fun than hunting down afraid little kids.”

With horror Freed heard a bow being drawn. Something inside of him hoped the mummy would simply stop being so brazen, one more remark and something terrible might have happened.

“So where're your cronies?”, the mummy asked, still loud and clear. If he felt threatened at all, he surely didn't show it. “Folk like you usually don't leave their guild hall without a gang to back them up.”

“I don't need anyone else to deal with you, loudmouth. It's going to be a pleasure.” The voice of the bushy-browed mercenary became soft, nearly like a song; broken up suddenly by the mummy's shrill laughter.

Freed found himself rotating half-baked ideas in his mind, but the situation seemed hopeless. He couldn't escape over the wall, and all the mummy seemed to accomplish was to make the mercenary even angrier.

“Nah, don't be so sure of yourself, geezer”, said the mummy, nearly sounding casual. It was truly odd, all things considered – they were two teenagers, both hungry and unarmed against a group of six fully armed and fully trained men, no matter if only one of them was currently visible, the others surely weren't far. At least, the mummy could escape over the wall.

For a second, Freed was sure he would.

But then, a whizzing echoed through the alley, and before he knew it, Freed jumped up and turned around the rubbish pile, an empty feeling like a hole in his stomach.

He didn't really have the time to take in the scene; he only realised that the mummy had avoided the arrow that had been shot with a jump, but the mercenary was already drawing another.

“Ah, there you are, squirrel”, the mercenary whispered darkly, his bow still pointing at the mummy, who fingered at his bandages. “I'll come for you in a second, I just have to get rid of your mouthy friend here first.”

Freed didn't wait for the mercenary to shoot again, instead, he drew a barrier in front of himself and the mummy, just in time to ward off the second arrow.

In the same moment, the alley began to glow. Or better, a strange, sickly green light spread through the shadows of the adjacent houses; bright against the gloominess of the alley, but also unnatural, unsettling.

And when Freed saw a discarded bandage flying through the air, slowly giving in to gravity, he knew where it was coming from without having to look. He recognised the colour, the odd, unnatural green of a single eye that never fully looked at its opposite.

Eye magic, it was as clear as day.

“What're you doing, you...”, screamed the mercenary, focussing fully on the mummy now, but his voice died down and his face became somehow slack, losing all the determination and cruelty it had shown before. Instead, it turned _red_. Just as unnatural as the green light, and not just the face, the whole skin of the mercenary seemed to have changed colours to a dark shade of purple. And the mummy sniggered.

“Sorry, did I forget to tell you? You really shouldn't look into my eyes, bastard”, he sneered.

Freed, who was standing next to him, turned his head to the mummy, at the same time confused, relieved, and a little afraid. He was really just a teenager beyond the bandage; a teenager with a bony face, an unruly shock of dark blue hair and something black on his thin nose. Then, before he could react or think of something to do, the other boy turned his attention to Freed. “So, what do you want him to do?”

“I... what?”, it escaped Freed, his eyes torn between the green glow and the red-skinned, oddly dazed looking mercenary.

“We don't have forever, so come on. Kill himself? Go into the next bar and start a brawl? Leave us all his money, go into a shop and throw out all the food? Dance, maybe?”

“I... beg your pardon?” He truly couldn't make anything of the mummy's words.

“Stop begging my fucking pardon and do something!”, the mummy barked, clearly losing patience. “Tell me what you want him to do!”

“He... they... can just go home!”, Freed said, a little desperately, still having no idea where this would lead.

As an answer, he received a single, shrill barking sound from the mummy. “Boring. But that's you, huh? Boring? By the book? Okay then.” And then, without any warning, he suddenly turned serious. “I need you to do exactly what I tell you, got it? I'm gonna take care of the mercs, somehow. When I give you a sign, you run. Left and then down the street, then turn right when you see the next big crossing. If you follow that road, you'll get into one of the farmer's districts. There's a building with a thatched roof right next to the market place, its owner is a moron and on the backyard is an empty barn. You can hide there for a while. You got that?”

Freed was left with nothing more than a short moment to nod before the dormant mercenary suddenly came back to live.

“Your men?”, barked the mummy.

“Two men stationed south, one on the other side of the wall. Two others block the main road”, he said, in a monotonous, simple voice.

“Good”, said the mummy. “Listen, geezer. You're gonna go back to your cronies on the main road and tell them nobody's here, got it? No squirrel, no bandage-face.”

Like he had been hypnotised, the bushy-browed mercenary started moving backwards, still looking directly into the face of the mummy. For every step the men took, the mummy made one forward. It was an odd, slightly frightening sight; and it left Freed utterly speechless.

When the mercenary had reached the entrance of the alley, and the mummy had, too; the other boy waved with one of his hands.

Freed understood he had to follow, and quickly moved up, making sure to stay one step behind the mummy. “Scratch going left”, he muttered. “Go right, down the road. Third crossing, then turn left. When the houses begin to thin down, turn left and right once more and you're on the road to the farmer's district. You got it?”

“I... I think so.”

“Okay. Then let's go!”

“What about you?”

The answer was a quiet snigger. “Worried about dirty old me, moss-head? I'm touched. But I've dealt with worse than a bunch of stupid mercs.”

If everything went like the mummy had planned, Freed would cheat fate the third time that day. It was unbelievable, even more so because he had found in that dark street full of rubbish the one thing he had needed when he had needed it: an ally.

Somewhere within the emptiness in Freed's mind, he suddenly felt glad. “Thanks.”

When he started running, he only looked back once to see the blue-haired boy jump onto a lamp-post in a fluid motion, always keeping the mercenary in his area of vision.

Fate truly knew strange paths, when the son of a noble family suddenly found himself trusting a street kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing a 'mysterious' new ally for Freed^^ I know it's _very_ hard to figure out who it is :P  
>  This is one of the chapters that was the most fun to write.  
> Also, once again: Thanks to everyone who came to read this, left kudos and/or a comment either here or on my tumblr. This is my first project of that length, and to know that there are people who enjoy this is really incredible!


	5. Interlude: Plaything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next chapter is nothing more than a brief visit in someone else's head, not Freed's - which is also why I decided to upload two chapters this week. Uploading only this would feel like trolling :D

It was disgusting.

Black clouds swirled in a sea of a sickly greenish brown, streaked by the occasional stripe of blood red. One of them looked like frozen, even, his dark red encased in the coldest blue. They were hard to look at normally when they were separated, but all together on the ground in front of him, one big pile of revolting colours, they were absolutely and totally detestable.

They were also absolutely creamed, and that was probably the only important thing. He briefly wondered how he'd gotten into this, using those damn eyes against mercs that weren't even after him; but then again, he hadn't had that much fun in ages and that alone made everything worth it. Nothing better than proving a bunch of morons that he wasn't to be taken lightly.

It was funny that the rich kid had landed in his alley, of all places. Life on the streets was usually rather boring, apart from the occasional robbery in the nearness; the rich kid, though... he definitely had been the most interesting event of the last months. He was a runaway, with Red Minotaur on his heel, and that alone was reason enough to meddle in his affairs. But now that Red Minotaur was dealt with, the kid should be safe, shouldn't he? At least long enough to escape. He probably should do the same, go to one of his more remote hideouts for a few days.

Though it was a bit of a pity.

Now that he thought about it... he hadn't laughed like today in weeks. He hadn't even spoken in days, there was simply nobody he could have spoken to. Some days it didn't bother him, but most of the time... he didn't really like to admit it, but he didn't like being like that. Without anyone.

Even if his current situation was entirely his fault and he didn't forget that, not a single second.

But there wasn't any harm in playing a little, was there? Just for a bit, it wouldn't be forever. Probably. Most likely.

But the opportunity... just a few days. Just until the rich kid had made up his mind where to go.

Just to laugh a little, have someone to talk to. Just to have a little fun.

He found himself smirking at the prospect, his eyes still glued to his ugly handiwork on the ground and their nauseating look. He had to get his bandage though, it was still somewhere on the ground in his alley.

And then, he would go and catch up with the rich kid for a little adventure.


	6. Demons

For someone who had spent a great part of his life in a castle up in the mountains, Freed found it quite easy to follow the mummy's directions.

He quickly found the road leading to the farmer's district. The farer he ran, however, the slower he became. The exhaustion had still not left his body, not to speak of the fact that his stomach began to protest with every physical effort he made; it turned out that one bite of food was not a good idea when being hungry.

Even with the worry of the mercenaries catching up to him, he couldn't help falling back from a fast run to a milder jog first and later, there was not enough power left within him for more than simply walking. Fortunately, when he looked behind himself, he couldn't see any of the group following him.

The farmer's district made him feel safer; he could see more of the afternoon sun, more of the sky, and there were far less shadows in which mercenaries could hide.

Or odd mummies with eye magic, for that matter. Freed wasn't certain if he would see the mummy again. With skills like that, escaping would have been easy, and it certainly still was. Probably, the mummy would use the distraction he would cause due to whatever his eye magic allowed him to do to run away. Into another part of town, leaving the mercenaries to chase after Freed again.

At least, he now had a head start and a place to hide, even if the thought he wouldn't meet the mummy again – as odd as it seemed to Freed – made him a little sad. He still had many questions, now more than ever; he had never _met_ an actual person apart from himself who possessed eye magic, nor did it make any sense to Freed that the mummy had helped him twice without any logical reason. And neither did he know his ally's name, which, in retrospective, bothered him a little.

In the farmer's district, Freed found the market place easy enough (the road he had been on directly led to it), and the house with the thatched roof was there, too; right next to the local tavern, it seemed. Finding a way to reach the backyard had appeared the most difficult task to Freed, though standing in front of the building in question, he saw that there was a passageway big enough for a carriage leading directly from the street to the backyard.

He found the barn empty apart from many, many piles of straw which Freed certainly took over the rubbish piles any day. It smelled fresh and somehow rustic, a definite step up from his last hiding spot.

Freed didn't even have two minutes to just lie in the straw and think about how he could get his hands on a weapon without money to pay for it before a noise from above him startled him out of his recovery. A hatch on the gable of the barn had been opened and closed, and he could make out a lanky figure in ragged clothing scrambling about the rafters, wearing a strangely familiar backpack and a newly wrapped bandage.

With another rather graceful motion, the mummy jumped down from the rafters and landed in the straw next to Freed.

“Problem solved for at least another few hours”, he said with a grin, unfastened the backpack and placed it between himself and Freed.

For a second, Freed was about to feel astonished that the mummy had come to find him once more, though the gladness he felt at seeing a familiar face – or at least the lower half of it – was stronger at the moment. It was true he never had had many friends or simply other children to be with, but in the castle, he had never been really alone, either; except he had locked himself in the library. The thought of having an apparently friendly person around for a while longer was rather pleasant.

“I can't thank you enough”, Freed replied, while the mummy started rummaging around in the backpack.

“Nah, forget it, okay?”, he said casually, and then, he began unpacking things. “Let's rather see what the fat guy had with him.”

“You have taken it from one of the mercenaries?”, Freed asked, not masking his dismay. The mummy, in the meantime, didn't even look up and produced a whetstone and a bottle from the pack.

“Listen, moss-head, you don't need to take anything from this stuff, okay? I'm sure as hell not gonna share if you don't wanna.”

A wrinkly notepad followed the bottle, together with a magical pen and a rather colourful magazine. “A pervert he is, now that's something”, the mummy muttered, but Freed, who had gone over to simply watching him instead of wasting his breath chastising him, heard more than a little amusement in his voice and noticed that the mummy put the magazine on a different spot than the other contents. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was displayed in the magazine.

“Aaaannnd of course”, the mummy went on, grinning wildly and producing something wrapped in a kind of paper, “he's a greedy pig. I'd have bet on that.”

When the mummy unfolded the paper, Freed's stomach gave another very loud protest at his current empty state.

“That's what you get from being picky”, said the mummy and laughed.

Freed felt blood rising into his cheeks once more. It were sandwiches. Wonderful, nice-smelling sandwiches with cheese and meat on them, and at least four.

As if to tease him, the mummy casually leant back into the straw, a sandwich in one hand and the bottle in the other, which he promptly uncorked with his teeth.

Freed tried to convince his stomach that eating stolen food was absolutely against his codex, but once the mummy also started smacking his lips, his honour lost the mental battle against his hunger.

Two sandwiches turned out to be not enough to fill the gaping hole inside his stomach, though at the very least, they were quite thick and a good start. The bottle, very much against Freed's anticipation, was indeed only filled with water. He would have thought it to be wine, didn't mercenaries always have a bottle of alcohol with them, at least in the books?

They ate and drank in silence, until Freed couldn't hold back the questions any longer. “What did you do with the mercenary back there? It's eye magic, isn't it?”

He somehow had expected a grin or something similar, but instead, the mummy sighed deeply, crossed his arms behind his head and fell back onto the straw, staring at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“What does it let you do?”

“You've seen it, that's enough”, the mummy replied plainly, making Freed feel rather taken aback.

“That does not mean I understand it”, he said, against a little voice in his head that told him that it was probably better if he didn't ask any further. The throbbing in his own eye that had been so familiar during the last months might have disappeared, but did he understand why? Was he able to talk about it freely?

In a sense, he already expected the growl that forewent the answer. “Is that important? They're gonna leave us alone for some hours, but it's not gonna last forever.”

“Us?”

“'Course, us”, the mummy said, more enthusiastically as if latching on to the possibility to change the subject and sat back up. “After that stunt I pulled, they're gonna be after me now, too. They've seen us together.”

A wave of guilt washed over Freed, and he avoided looking into the direction of the mummy, instead started playing with some straws. Thief or not, street kid or not, if not for Freed, the mummy wouldn't have been dragged into this. “I want to apologise”, Freed finally said. “If not for me---”

“No need to go there, buddy. I'm not gonna blame you for decisions I made myself”, the mummy intervened, and while Freed knew it was genuine, and not simply meant to lift his spirits, it didn't quite reach him. “Besides, what the hell did you get up to that your people thought it was a good idea to send Red Minotaur to catch you? Or were they just feeling overly dramatic?”

The tight feeling in his stomach that had decreased a little during the last hours intensified again. Should he really, no, could he really tell that to the mummy? Did he even want to speak about it? One of the straws he had fidgeted with broke in his hands, made him notice that he had started shaking a little. “I'm sorry. I don't think I can speak about this”, he said quietly.

Much to his surprise, he could hear a soft chuckle from where the mummy sat. “Thought that much”, he said.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to cool a little while Freed thought once more about what had happened the day before. It seemed so far away, but every time he relived the memories, it came back as if it had only been a minute ago, in all its darkness and terror.

The mummy had taken the silence that had followed their short discussion as a sign that he could lie back down in the straw, this time, looking at the magazine.

“Do you think we're safe here?”, Freed asked, some time later after he had forcefully dragged his mind back to the problems at hand.

“No idea”, said the mummy, not looking up from the magazine. “They sure not gonna give up that quickly, but it's about two kilometres between us and the mercs from where I saw them last. That enough for you?”

“For me?”

The magazine was put away, and the mummy sat back up once more. “Yeah? I mean, I don't care. I know how to get away. And that barrier-thingy you did there seems kinda helpful, sure, but no offence, you're also kinda clueless.”

He shrugged his lanky shoulders, and for one reason or another, it made Freed chuckle softly. “Yes. I am indeed pretty clueless.”

“A fault confessed is half redressed”, the mummy singsonged, wagging a finger and clearly trying to look important, but failing miserably.

An odd easiness spread from somewhere deep within Freed as he started to giggle.

An ally. He had never had an ally before.

“Though even with all my cluelessness, I don't think two kilometres will be enough for long”, he said good-naturedly.

The mummy didn't waste a second and started packing his new acquisitions. “Okay, then let's go”, he said, jumped onto his feet and fastened the stolen backpack.

“And where to?”, asked Freed once he had gotten up to his feet, too; glad that he could ask someone else that question for a change.

“A village a few kilometres out of town, Gladiolus I think it's called. I know some hiding spots there and we can still reach it before night falls.”

Grinning enthusiastically, the mummy started to be on his way towards the door with a odd looking motion, as if he had been tempted to jump back onto the rafters before he had remembered that Freed couldn't do the same.

“Wait a second”, Freed said, moving fast to catch up while the mummy stopped and looked over his shoulder, a little confused. “I failed to introduce myself earlier.” He tried to clean his hand in his shirt, but after the day, it was just as dirty as his hands. It wasn't as if the mummy was any cleaner, though, so it had to do. “My name is Freed Justine. Pleased to meet you.”

The mummy laughed out, slapping a hand onto his face and sticking his tongue out. “Shit, you're something with all that politeness”, he said, but, much to Freed's elation, took the hand that Freed had offered him. “Well then... call me Bickslow.”

 

\---

 

They left the barn directly through the front door, and as it turned out, also Crocus on one of the main roads.

Freed would have assumed that they were going to take a number of little alleys and streets, hide behind crates and bushes, but it seemed that Bickslow had the audacity to simply ignore all the odd looks the people threw them and moved on, hands shoved into his pockets.

“Don't you think we are a little... too suspiciously looking to walk so openly?”, Freed asked after a while. Considering they were probably being followed, it seemed like a legit concern.

“Don't know, I usually don't take roads.”

“You don't?”, Freed gave back in disbelief.

As a non-verbal answer, Bickslow quickly had a look around, took a short run-up and jumped, a good meter high to reach the topmost parts of a street-lamp with his hands. He proceeded to pull himself up, balanced on the thin metal and took another leap onto the flat roof of a nearby building. Then, he turned around to a quite awestruck Freed and grinned broadly. “Nope, I don't.”

“Where did you learn to do that!”, Freed blurted out, now ignoring the people around them as well and running up to stand next to the building the other boy was on top of.

“Circus”, said Bickslow plainly and jumped back down from the roof. The owner of the house stuck his head out of the window, wearing an angry face that made Bickslow automatically increase his pace to get away. Freed made sure to make a short bow and apologise for the disturbance before he followed.

“You've lived in a circus?”

As an answer, Bickslow sighed deeply. “Been growing up in one, actually”, he said, and Freed noticed for the first time that there seemed to always have been some levity in Bickslow's tone before because it was most definitely lacking now.

“You're not with them anymore?”

“Yeah, obviously?”

Thinking back of their conversation in the barn, Freed decided it was probably for the better if he didn't ask any further. He wanted to know what had happened, but at the same time, he wasn't certain he could have answered questions about his own past at the moment.

“I've been growing up in a castle”, he said instead, trying to pay back an information with another about himself, something he was at least comfortable with sharing.

Bickslow snorted. “You don't say”, he said casually, but then, stopped dead in his tracks and turned down his head to look at Freed, mouth hanging a little open. “But not _that_ castle, right?”

“Which one?”

“That one over there”, he answered, pointing into the direction in which Mercurius, the palace of the King of Fiore, lay.

“No, of course not”, Freed replied. Bickslow exhaled softly, looking a little relieved, and started walking again.

“Good, for a moment I feared you're the prince or something.”

“We have a princess, didn't you know? She is an only child.”

“Princess? Hm. Okay.”

“There were country-wide festivities when she was born.”

“Really?”, said Bickslow, and now, he sounded a little disappointed. “Aw man, I like festivals. Probably missed that one.”

Asking himself how on Earthland someone could have missed the birth of the princess, Freed still decided to keep the discussion going. “Anyway. My family's castle is up in the mountains.” Inadvertently, he took a look back over his shoulder, but apart from the white mountain tops, he couldn't see anything. Not the lake, of course, but also none of the castle's towers.

“Shouldn't you be better with climbing then?”

A little confused, it was Freed now who looked up to his companion. “I beg your pardon? What makes you think I am not able to climb?”

“You wouldn't be as surprised seeing me climb onto a wall then”, the other boy answered, so plainly it seemed as if the connection was indeed very logical to him.

“Climbing onto mountains and jumping onto walls is not the same thing. It requires a very different set of skills”, Freed said.

“It's both about getting up, isn't it?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. However, do you think you can just jump onto a mountain?”

Bickslow shrugged his shoulders, staring up into the sky once more. “I could surely try.”

They were leaving the town behind by then, the sun was already slowly turning the sky orange. The road was far more open from here on, Freed could see for several kilometres ahead.

So could potential followers.

“I think we should really leave the road”, Freed said, stopping to check for bushes and trees to hide behind, and indeed, a little further down the road, a little forest started. “How about we head towards that forest?”

“Sure, if you wanna. I never bother with hiding much when I'm alone”, Bickslow replied casually, but immediately left the road, leaving Freed wondering if instead of audacious, Bickslow might simply be a very... unique thief. Or a quirky one. Or if all the stories he had read about thieves were in fact wrong.

“You hid when the mercenaries came to your alley the first time, and you hid me then, too”, Freed pointed out.

“Yeah, that was different”, Bickslow retorted easily and grinned. “I thought they were after me, you know?”

“Now they _are_ after you, and you walk just plainly down the road?”

“They're not here right now”, Bickslow replied, shrugging his shoulders again.

Freed let out a short sigh. “You know, Bickslow, I'm starting to think you are a little clueless, too.”

If he had been any other person, Freed might have expected the other boy to huff or be angry, but thinking back of what he knew about his new ally, he could also have expected the shrill laughter that followed his discovery.

 

\---

 

They left the forest when it had already gone dark outside, and in close proximity to the village Bickslow had been talking about.

He lead them to a shack near the farer end of the settlement, where Freed simply collapsed into a pile of hay that certainly wasn't fresh. He didn't care, though; he had been running for half of the day at least, it seemed, and his feet were burning. He only managed to eat one of the apples they had taken from the forest (Freed had been very glad that they had found a wild growing apple tree, it meant they had to steal less) before his eyes fell shut, and he drifted off into another night of dark dreams.

The monster was back again in them, as was the violet glow of his eye, the claws and the darkness, and now, adding to it the terrible feeling of running endlessly, away from the monster and the terror, but aimlessly, too. The darkness was reaching out for him, he could feel it, and just when it was the strongest, and Freed feared he had to give in, he woke up to a blue sky outside of the shack, panting heavily.

After taking reassuring breaths, he recounted the events from the day before as if to make sure he wasn't dreaming anymore. An odd sensation washed over his back before he could really come back to his senses, cold and hot at the same time, unpleasant; as if someone was watching him very intensely. And when he turned around, he found Bickslow sitting in the rafters, his bandage wrapped so loosely around his head that both of his eyes were staring at him directly. This time, he only broke away fully after a few seconds in which Freed felt as if his insides were being turned out. Bickslow immediately began to tighten his bandage again, leaving only one eye visible.

After the events from the last day, and without thinking twice, Freed looked at his hands to see if they had turned purple, before the thought of the slack face of the mercenary crossed his mind, and Bickslow's words about looking into his eyes. He had once more avoided direct eye contact this time. The curiosity inside Freed began to long for answers about this other, new form of eye magic, but he didn't dare asking again.

Ally or not, he was still a stranger. But then again, eye magic was probably the one thing they had in common, the street kid and the noble son, and he hadn't even told Bickslow that he possessed it, too. But it wasn't active at the moment, or was it? Freed stood up, walked towards one of the shack's broken windows and looked into the shards, pushing his hair aside. For a moment, his heart threatened to stop beating, but when two normal green eyes looked back at him, everything seemed fine for just a second before he remembered that even if it wasn't there, he wouldn't be able to erase the sins his eye had made him commit.

He could nearly feel the throbbing again, the dull pain that became sharper and sharper until it exploded... There was nothing about his eyes that reminded him of that monstrous violet stare at the moment, nothing about his face that looked unusual. He was simply unkempt, dirty, looking exhausted. But the latter had also become so familiar to him during the last months that it didn't startle him any longer.

It wouldn't be forever until the Eye of Darkness came back, he was certain of that. What would happen then? Would it transform him into a monster again, would it make him kill again? And even if there was the faint hope that he could learn to control it, what would happen if Freed's theory was wrong? What would happen if the eye had nothing to do with his actions, and the monster had just been a fabrication of his mind, meant to dissuade his heart from accepting that it had been truly evil all along?

He had done an unspeakably evil deed. He had dared to break his father's rules, the tradition of his family, had soiled their good name, what happened... “What happened to the angel who fell from the heavens?”, he suddenly heard his own voice whispering, cutting through the silence in the shack. He hadn't wanted to say it out loud, he had just remembered the book he hadn't finished reading and it appeared so fitting.

“He became the first demon”, answered Bickslow's scratchy voice from somewhere behind him.

Freed turned around in shock, finding the other boy still sitting in the rafters, looking decidedly anywhere but Freed.

“De... demon?”, he stuttered in reply, feeling a shaking spreading through his limbs.

Was that what he was, a demon?

Something dull and aching pulsed through his head, he turned around to face the shard again, horrified that he would see the violet Eye of Darkness.

But nothing was there, not even a flicker of a different colour than a blueish green, no black eyeball.

“Yeah, that's how the story goes. Total gibberish, if you ask me”, Bickslow said casually.

“'The Song of Creation'... You know that story, too?”, Freed asked, combing his hair back over his eye, looking up to the rafters. His heart was still beating in his throat.

“Who doesn't? You hear a lot of stories in the circus”, Bickslow replied plainly, “Fairy tales meant to scare little kids into being good, I bet. Why, you think you're a demon 'cause you fell down from your mountain castle?”

It hit close to home even if it hadn't been meant to, too close, and Freed, to steady himself, leant onto the wall of the shack, sliding down until he sat on the floor burying his face in his knees.

Demon. Someone good who had fallen so far that only hell remained as his home? Someone with fangs and claws, black eyes and so much hatred inside himself, someone who killed for nothing?

“Nah, what's up now? I was just screwing with you, buddy. 'Course you're not a demon”, he heard Bickslow say and with a thud, he leapt down from the rafters.

Freed wanted to believe him, he _needed_ to believe him, but when it came down to it, what did Bickslow know? He hadn't told the other boy about his own eye magic yet, had not spoken about his past – Bickslow knew as little about Freed as the other way around.

And still, for the moment it was the two of them, not one of them alone. Freed looked up from his knees when the feeling of something warm invaded his darkness, and he found the other boy squatting not even thirty centimetres away like he had done the day before. But instead of a grin, he actually wore a smile.

“Come on, Freed. Stop moping and let's go do something fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here you go - this is how Freed met Bickslow in my headcanon. Little did they know of the adventures to come...


	7. Iris

When Freed stood on top of a little rock, the air of the late summer morning cool on his skin, and looked into the clear blue below him, he wasn't certain why he had followed Bickslow here. What had made him agree to this foolishness?

There were a number of good reasons why this was a very bad idea. First, he didn't like not having solid ground below his feet. Second, there was no shelter around, just a little bush which would be hardly enough to hide behind should the mercenaries discover them. Third, the village was in plain sight, a little away maybe, but even so. Fourth, the water was surely very cold, and Freed liked his baths to be around his own body temperature, a little warmer even.

He should have been thinking about where to go now, how to obtain a weapon; he should have been making preparations, or should just simply have taken the opportunity to clean himself and drink instead of standing on that rock and trying hard not to think about what would happen if he leapt. He had hardly been able to look when Bickslow had jumped; running up from the grass, leaping onto the rock first and then, with the loudest laugh Freed had heard from him, head first into the river Iris, the same that came down from the mountains.

Freed didn't do such things as jumping into rivers if not absolutely necessary. Not even when the current was not strong at this point, not even if it was quite deep and clear and surely somehow inviting.

“You frozen solid up there?”, Bickslow teased. Even after he had discarded his other clothes (though Freed wasn't sure they even deserved that name, torn and dirty as they were), he had kept the bandage firmly wrapped around his head. When Freed didn't react with more than a shiver, he splashed around wildly until a bit of water hit Freed's toes.

It was so cold it made him cringe.

“You're such a chicken, buddy!”, cried Bickslow in between fits of laughter so enthusiastic his tongue was hanging out.

“I don't think the temperature of the water is nearly high enough for me to safely take a bath in there, thank you very much”, Freed said, feeling a little bit miffed. “And you probably shouldn't either. It can't be healthy.”

“Boring”, muttered Bickslow, “You're really boring!”

“And healthy”, replied Freed, finally deciding that he had had enough of staring into the water if he wasn't going to jump after all. He climbed down from the rock and put his clothes back on, even if they were dirty. He would proceed to wash his hands and face, drink, and wait behind the bush until Bickslow had finally lost the feeling in his limbs, which was certainly going to happen in the cold water sooner rather than later. It had happened soon enough with his own limbs the day before, and he surely wasn't going to repeat that if it could be avoided.

While he attended to cleaning his hands and arms, Bickslow seemed to follow his movements with his eyes, staring intensely at him with his mouth hanging slightly open. While it surely wasn't as unpleasant as the gaze with which he had scrutinised Freed earlier that day, and didn't make him feel turned inside out, it still made him a little wary.

The reason for Bickslow's strange fixation on Freed's movements presented itself more quickly than Freed had expected, once he had started washing his face and consequently had stopped watching the other boy from the corner of his eyes. He had heard Bickslow coming nearer, expected him to leave the water and jump down from the rock again like he had done three times already.

However, a cold feeling in his neck told him otherwise. It was so sudden that Freed cringed and yelped involuntarily, and nearly fell head first into the river. The next things he heard were Bickslow's booming laughter and footsteps, and followed by a splash Bickslow was back in the river before Freed had even had the time to turn around.

When he started to frantically search for the source of the sudden cold in his back he realised that whatever it was, it _moved;_ a long, thin thing that moved just as hectically as him. Freed had to suppress another yelp when the thing, that evaded all his attempts at catching it, slid down his neck and into his shirt, down his back. He jumped up as if he had been struck by lightning, but thanks to his loose shirt, the cold feeling stopped as the thing fell out of his clothes and landed in the grass. While he tried to catch his breath he turned around and found a small, thin, dark green fish lying in the grass, flouncing. All of that accompanied by the shrill sound of Bickslow's laughter.

“Shit, that's priceless!”, he cried, a hand slapped onto his face.

It was exasperating. Infuriating, even. Freed's head suddenly felt very warm, and something within him, something very childish, wanted to _do something back_. Something else knew he was above such petty things as taking revenge for children's pranks, but that voice was remarkably quiet.

But unfortunately, everything he could come up with was to grab the poor creature in the grass and throw it back at Bickslow, who simply ducked down to evade Freed's attempt at payback.

After his breath rate had returned to normal, and he was tired of staring angrily at Bickslow, Freed turned back to cleaning his face, now looking up sporadically to make sure Bickslow didn't leave the water again. Revenge was a dish best served cold, the books said. He would get back at the other boy in time, when he expected it the least.

Finding out _how_ to return the favour, however, was not quite as simple as deciding to. Once cleaned, Freed laid down on the grass behind the bush, glancing carefully over to Bickslow, who was now diving from time to time.

It had to be something unexpected, something shocking; at a time when the other boy would feel safe... and then, Freed would do whatever his mind would come up with and then he would be the one who had the last laugh! He might have gotten used to Bickslow's habit of laughing at everything, but that didn't mean he didn't find it odd. It would be satisfying to, for once, be the one who would surprise and revel in the other one's exasperation!

Water and coldness as means to his end weren't suited, though. Bickslow didn't seem to be jumpy when it came to these kind of sensations, or he couldn't have stood being in the water for long. Using his magic was also out of questions, it would be against his rules to waste his magic for such a petty purpose.

Freed wasn't sure for how long he had indulged in his revenge plans before Bickslow finally left the water, didn't bother to dry and put his dirty clothes back on. He then rummaged around in the stolen backpack once more, took out a piece of string and attached it to a stick he broke off from the bush. Then, he knotted the other end of the string around a piece of an apple from the day before, sat down a little apart from Freed and threw the string into the water.

Freed had found fishing fascinating as a little child, but his father had never allowed him to join the fishermen around Lake Saffron and try out catching fish himself.

Momentarily distracted from his objective of creating a revenge plan, Freed sat up, too, looking at the spot where the string entered the water.

It was still apart from the current, no ripples, no tugging on the string from below the surface. A few minutes later, Bickslow noticed it, too.

“Ah damn”, he said and pulled the string out of the water forcefully. The apple piece nearly collided with Freed's forehead.

He proceeded to throw the string into the water once more, leaving Freed wondering what exactly had changed now compared to his first attempt.

As time progressed, Bickslow became more and more impatient, it seemed; he pulled his makeshift fishing pole out of the water and threw it back in with an increasing frequency, always accompanied by a curse or swearing.

When he repeated this procedure for the second time in not even a minute, Freed finally had had enough and intervened. “I think you need to be more patient. The fish will not bite immediately”, he said.

Bickslow, in return, huffed. “This sucks”, he grumbled. “Bet they don't even like apples.”

“Worms would be preferable, yes.”

“You an expert on this?”, Bickslow asked, sounding both sceptical and darkly amused.

“I can't say I am”, Freed replied truthfully. “However, I have sometimes watched the fishermen around Lake Saffron, and they usually sit still and wait for a longer period of time before a fish takes the bait.”

Sitting still, it appeared, was one thing Bickslow wasn't good at at all. Just the second Freed had finished speaking, he shifted another time, the fishing pole moving with him.

“Let me give it a try”, said Freed.

“Now that I need to see”, said Bickslow, a broad and amused grin on his face.

When he attempted to pass the pole to Freed, however, the latter declined. It was clear to him by now that the undertaking was not going to be successful using the makeshift pole.

Instead, he stood up from his spot, moved a little closer to the water and observed it for a while. There were spots where especially many fish swam through the water, probably it had something to do with the currents. This was exactly what Freed had been looking for. He cast a barrier around one of these spots that was close to the bank, waited until some fish had been caught in it. Then, he tightened the barrier until it was barely large enough and the fish became more frantic, trying to escape their captivity.

All he needed to do was to kneel down at the riverside, stretch out his arm and close his hand around one of the larger fish.

When he presented his catch to Bickslow, who had watched him attentively, it was him who sported a wide, satisfied grin. Best served cold, indeed; the goofy expression of utter confusion on the other boy's face was all payback Freed needed.

\---

 

It turned out that when it came to their little fishing competition, Bickslow was not a bad loser. On the contrary, he spent most of their way back to the shack drilling Freed with excited questions about what else his magic could do. When he also wouldn't have it that Freed waved off his abilities with the comment 'It's nothing special', instead called it 'freaking awesome', Freed could feel something welling up inside of him that made him feel content, and somehow taller than he was. It was not entirely unfamiliar, but still rather rare, that his magic could excite someone that much.

When they had returned to the shack, midday was nearing. For better or for worse, the weather was fine and the sun shone brightly, and it worried Freed a little since usually, bright light was not very compatible with his migraines. But the pain had vanished with the Eye of Darkness, however permanent it would turn out to be. Thinking about what to do next, though, and how to act once his eye inevitably returned, proved to be quite challenging since Bickslow seemed to be a never ending source of questions about his magic.

“Damn, buddy – just think about the possibilities! You could lock people you don't like somewhere and only let them out when they do something for you! Hey, could you only allow them out when they... I don't know – cut their hand off or something?”

“That would be awful!”, Freed exclaimed, but Bickslow shrugged before he turned his attention to the old barn door he was currently destroying to make firewood. “Why should I even want to do something like that?”

“I don't know, maybe because hands are needed for most weapons? No hands, no weapons, no danger”, Bickslow said casually while he inspected the door's joints.

Freed felt slightly nauseated by the idea to use his magic like that, and decided to stir the topic into a different direction. “Anyway, if I'm not mistaken, you weren't that impressed with my magic yesterday.”

“Yeah... but yesterday I thought it was kinda standard, like 'no arrows here'. Like the thingies these lame Rune Knights use.”

“There are two mistakes in your statement”, Freed replied, feeling a bit miffed. “First: Rune Knights are anything but 'lame'. They preserve the law and order of the magical world and it is an honour to serve them. And second: I do, in fact, use the same magic as them. It is actually called Jutsu Shiki, if you must know.”

“Really?”, Bickslow said, his big mouth hanging open in confusion. “Still, catching fish with it is way cooler than that standard stuff. More useful, too. So Rune Knights 0, Freed 1.”

He kicked the door once more, shattering the ramshackle thing into splinters, while Freed sat down in the shadow of a nearby tree, revelling a little in the feeling of being the source of that much excitement, even if he wasn't completely sure if he agreed with Bickslow's idea about the applications of his magic.

It took them a while to get the door splinters burning since they weren't completely dry. The smoke was another problem, in two ways, even. For one, Freed disliked it because it drew attention to their hideout and second, because the stench of the burning wood caused him slight headaches. Since it was necessary to roast the fish they had caught, though, he decided to solve the problem by casting a smoke-suppressing and stench-repelling barrier around the fireside, very much to Bickslow's renewed excitement.

Having a warm meal felt incredible after the last two days. They had been lucky with the fish as they provided meat in abundance, and for once, Freed didn't feel rushed or pressed to run. All in all, the day until now had been – for the lack of a better word – enjoyable, and it was a miracle in itself that Freed found himself still able to feel like this after what had happened.  
His father's castle seemed further away than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was time for a little breather :)


	8. Monster

For a day in late summer, the sun was still very warm. It wasn't like the intensely burning heat of summer, it was more gentle, nearly careful; and the air smelled like fruits and roasted fish. The grass was remarkably soft, and he could hear birds singing. For a moment, it felt perfect, like being engulfed in a soft blanket while the window in his room was opened on a Sunday morning when he was allowed to sleep in a little, as if Constance was waiting for him with a fruit pastry...

The sun was a little too bright, and so he turned his head because his eyes, though closed, stung a little. There surely was no harm in dozing off for a bit. Freed felt so content at the moment, not hungry, comparatively clean, and the weather was so close to perfect, it felt as if nature itself was inviting him to relax, if only for a moment.

There was something in the back of his head that protested, but his mind felt already too blissfully numb, his limbs so blissfully heavy that he had soon forgotten about it.

It might have been hours or just minutes in which he lay in the grass, vaguely hearing the birds, half-smiling to nobody in particular and enjoying the balmy air. He couldn't tell when he woke up, but it couldn't have been long.

Bickslow sat still at the remainders of the fire, which were still giving off clouds of smoke below the barrier, had the colourful magazine in hands again and looked a little bored.

Yawning behind his hand, Freed went to join him. His head still felt slightly numb, nearly a bit painfully so. Maybe he had ricked his neck somehow, he wasn't used to sleeping on the ground after all.

“Feeling sleepless?”, teased Bickslow from the fireplace.

“Why, I thought I had slept for a while?”, replied Freed, blinking away the drowsiness.

“Oh? You've been under that tree for only... five pages, can't have been long.”

“I do feel rather relaxed, though”, said Freed and sat down at the fireplace again. It was a good time to start thinking about the future now, his head surely cleared in a few minutes, he was rested and fed, there was nothing standing in his way now. Apart from his curiosity, of course. “By the way, what is it you're reading there?”

“Sorcerer Magazine”, Bickslow gave back and lifted the item in question so that Freed could see the cover. A beautiful young woman with light green hair but very cold eyes was shown there, the title was displayed in large letters on top of the page. “I wonder why that old bastard had that with him, he was no wizard. Probably only bought it for the bikini shots of the Blue Pegasus girls. Pervert.”

“Blue Pegasus is a wizard's guild, I take it?”, Freed asked.

“Pretty popular one, too; I guess”, said Bickslow and shrugged. “Don't know much about them, 'cept the models are often part of Blue Pegasus. How come you don't know, aren't you a wizard?”

“My father doesn't think very highly of guilds”, Freed said. He felt a sting in his heart thinking back of his father, his brothers. He pushed the feeling away, intent on not starting to fall into despair again before he had found a reasonable course of action. “Shouldn't you know more, though, you are a wizard, too, am I right?”

The dull feeling in his head wouldn't go away, so Freed started rubbing his eyes a little. It slowly became unusual for his eyes to feel so heavy after nothing more than a little nap.

“In the circus, there were no wizards”, Bickslow replied plainly. “'Cept me, of course. But I...”, he sighed deeply, and looked up into the sky as if being undecided if to continue or not. “I was trained as an acrobat, didn't learn magic”, he finally said while Freed was still massaging his skull. “Apart from my---”

Surprised at Bickslow's sudden pause, Freed stopped for a moment, and looked to the other boy. The one, green eye was torn wide open, and Bickslow's jaw had dropped; he seemed frozen solid.

A very bad feeling shot through Freed's veins all out of sudden; what had happened? But then... the heaviness, the dull pain, the bright light... he had pushed his hair away when he had massaged his skull.

Freed's heart sank into his stomach.

“What the... what the hell?!”, Bickslow said, forgetting about his habit of not looking at Freed directly. He was blatantly staring, his one eye focussed on the eye Freed usually had hidden behind his hair. Usually.

And Freed didn't feel anything apart from the dull throbbing, no cold and hot shiver in his back, no being turned inside out.

Whatever Bickslow's eyes did, it didn't work against the Eye of Darkness.

“That's so... damn, that looks aweso--- Freed, wait!”

But Freed hadn't been able to. Instead, he had jumped up, running towards the broken window of the shack, though not really wishing to confirm what he already knew.

That he had expected it would happen eventually didn't soften the blow to see the eye again, not at all. There it was, black eyeball and violet iris; the eye of a demon.

His reflection stared back at him, he could nearly see it sneering, the claws on his arms, the dark skin...

“Oi Freed, what's up?”, cried Bickslow from the fireplace, Freed heard him like through a wall that he knew wasn't there.

It was back. He knew it shouldn't faze him, because he had known it would be sooner or later, but it did – it brought back memories, snippets of what had happened, the growling screams of the monster, clearer than ever...

“So that's why you knew I had it, too!”, he heard Bickslow say, still through a wall, but closer. “That eye's magical!”

How long would it be, how much time would he have left until the monster came back? Until he might ...

A hand touched his shoulder, he pushed it away in a harsh movement. He ignored Bickslow's surprised yelp.

After what had happened last time, he shouldn't be around people.

“Damn, that hurt, buddy”, Bickslow muttered, only a step behind him.

“Go away”, Freed pressed forth between half-closed lips, a shaking spreading through his limbs. It was for the best, it really was.

“What?!”

“Go away”, Freed repeated. Pulses of pain shot from his eyes through his head, like the heartbeat of a creature, like a reminder of what he could become. A reminder of who he had already become, and what he had done. “Get to safety.”

“Safety? What the hell are you talking about?”

He was clueless; for someone clever enough to trick six armed mercenaries and escape unscathed, he was so naïve.

“Just leave me!”, Freed cried once more, when instead of a presence leaving, he felt the hand on his shoulder another time. “Or else I might...”

“Yeah?” It was no question, though it was phrased as such. The pressure on his shoulder increased.

“I might... I might kill you.” His voice was not more than a whisper when he brought himself to say it, and in an instant, the hand on his shoulder vanished.

But at the same time, someone behind him laughed, loud and shrill and mirthless. It felt sobering.

“It's not funny, Bickslow!”, Freed barked, turning around with anger in his stomach. His problem was too big to be belittled by a street kid.

Bickslow stood a step behind him, hand slapped against his face and tongue hanging out, shaking with laughter, destroying all familiarity that Freed might have felt during the last hours. “You don't have any reason to laugh at this! You have no idea what I am capable of, and neither about what I did!”

“Oh yeah?”, Bickslow snapped back, his laughter dying down. “Funny, I could say the same thing about you. It's still hilarious.”

“There is nothing even remotely hilarious about all this!”, Freed all but screamed. “I don't know if you are not able to grasp the gravity of the situation---”

“Don't even try, you can't fool me”, Bickslow interrupted him, sounding so simple and plain, but at the same time so convinced, that Freed forgot for a moment to be angry and simply stared at the other boy. “Listen, I know I'm a loudmouth at times, but whatever I said yesterday, I wasn't gonna kill you. So stop pulling my leg.”

“Do you really think I'd make jokes about _that_?”

For a moment, Bickslow looked taken aback, nearly abashed, before the green glow around his eye intensified. “Probably ... not. But you're not gonna kill me, I know that.”

Something about the way he spoke, utterly sincere, felt disarming. “How can you possibly understand this, or know what I'm going to do?”, Freed asked, feeling more defiant now than angry.

For a moment, it seemed as if Bickslow had no intention to answer, but then, he took a deep breath and began to unwrap his bandage. “It's true I've no idea what you're gonna do, but...”

Turn after turn, the bandage fell to the ground, nothing more than a piece of dirty cloth. “... I sure as hell know you're not gonna hurt me. You're not that kinda guy, trust me on that. I know, 'cause with these damn eyes of mine, I can see your soul.”

Whatever the true meaning of Bickslow's words was, Freed momentarily pushed his renewed questions about the other boy's eyes away. He wasn't sure what he had expected Bickslow to look like beyond the bandage after he had just seen the other boy in profile the first time, but what he saw was enough to make him forget about his anger for the moment: two green eyes staring at him from a slightly gaunt face and – Freed couldn't quite believe it – a tattoo of a stick figure big and dark on his forehead, stretching its arms and legs above and below his eyes.

“Who did that to you”, Freed muttered, picturing men in dark clothes who looked remarkably like the mercenaries in his head, hunting down a blue-haired boy like prey.

But Bickslow laughed again, shrill and mirthless, and when he was finished, his lips remained curled up in a nasty grin. Together with the impassive stare of his sickly green eyes, it made his face look more like a grimace. “I”, he said and for a second, Freed was sure he had gone insane.

But then, his eyes suddenly turned sad and the grin, however evil it had looked, vanished into a rueful expression that Freed knew all too well. “Thought they'd go away if I banish them”, he said silently. “Turned out they don't.”

“You can't control them”, Freed stated, something inside him twisting rather painfully thinking to which lengths someone would go to suppress his powers. But then again, he had already thought himself of asking a physician to remove his eye.

“Why would I wear that bandage otherwise”, Bickslow gave back flatly. His gaze wandered up to where Freed had left his eye exposed. “What about you? You thought that eye was gone, too, right?”

“I had... No. Thinking that would be a delusion. It's never going to go away just so.”

“Tell me about it”, Bickslow answered with a self-conscious snort. “What's it doing?”

“It... it lets me make the meaning of my runes become reality. I can will them into existence, so to say.” Feeling already exhausted from this simple sentence, Freed fell down into the grass and leant back onto the shack's wall.

Bickslow copied his action immediately. “Sounds kinda cool, if you ask me”, he said, trying to sound friendly and interested, but there was still worry in his voice. And something dark like the looming threat of something that had been hidden away.

“I thought so, too, at least sometimes. But then... ”

“What happened?”, Bickslow asked, and Freed heard that sincerity in his voice again. Also, he didn't have the power to keep everything to himself any longer.

And so, he gave in. “I... I don't really know. Everything is a blur, but some things... they are so clear, so real in my mind... the claws, the anger... the darkness...”

“Claws? What the hell man, I thought you were screwing around when you were rambling about that demon stuff in the morning.”

“I wish I had been”, Freed gave back darkly. “Two days ago...”, he started, but needed a deep breath first before he could go on. “Two days ago I was practising the use of my eye and I cast a spell and then... the next thing I remember is that the darkness swallowed me, that there were claws... and a moment later, my tutor...” His eyes already felt hot and swollen, his heart was beating in his throat again. But Bickslow was still there, not moving, not laughing. Just listening, and it was encouraging. “I must have thrown him out of the window, but I...” There was no holding back the tears now. “I swear I didn't want to, I only wanted the lecture to end, I wanted to rest, but he kept on pushing me forward until I couldn't go on any more, and then everything turned black. I can't fathom how I was able to do that!”

Bickslow didn't reply immediately, and Freed had to look down into the grass. Moments passed by with cold and hot showers down his neck and the boy next to him shifting and fidgeting with his now unused bandage, and Freed trying to bring himself to simply stand up and leave. But the last minutes had left him drained, and there was no adrenaline to make up for his lack of energy right now.

“You don't need to swear”, Bickslow finally murmured. “You know... I believe you.”

“You do?” A wave of warm thankfulness washed over Freed when he looked up to see Bickslow nod. “I... thank you. But maybe … maybe I don't quite believe myself.”

For a few moments, they didn't speak, both lost in their own thoughts. Freed didn't make any effort to contain his tears, but letting them out felt... somehow cleansing, as if he had needed to say these things out loud at least once.

“So you think he's dead”, Bickslow said after a while, after Freed's sobs had died down. A wave of renewed terror shot through his veins.

“Yes”, he answered, nearly choking on that one, simple word that seemed to carry so much meaning, like a decision about the rest of his life.

“And you think your eye did... yeah? What exactly?”

“It made my spell reality, I only wanted to cast 'Wings' on myself, but then... something else happened.”

“And you fear it'll happen again.”

Now it was Freed who only nodded, unable to produce a word as he nearly choked on a new wave of panic. It was so, so different from thinking that it could happen to hear someone else say it out loud.

“Maybe you used the wrong spell or something”, Bickslow then suggested with a shrug, sounding only half-convinced of his own idea.

“No, I was only doing that spell the whole afternoon, there is no way I could have used another. It's the only one I know so far meant to be cast on living creatures”, Freed said, feeling the weight of every of his words on his tongue. “Every time I try to think about it, I can't seem to understand. I'm not sure if I even want to. What if... what if the eye only turned out how I am on the inside? What if it does that when I get too angry, when I don't follow the rules?”

“Crap”, replied Bickslow, so dryly it startled Freed. “I might not have an inkling about magic, but I do know a good soul from a bad. And yours is as squeaky clean as they get.”

“So you meant it...”, said Freed, remembering what Bickslow's words from before and glad to be distracted. “Your eyes... they let you see souls?”

As an answer, Bickslow only nodded heavily. He didn't look happy at all, not even the hint of a smile on his face. But if his powers really allowed him to see so deep into the human nature...

“And what do you mean – squeaky clean?”, Freed asked. He couldn't help being a little curious as a bit of still very cautious relief built up in his stomach.

Bickslow, before he answered, sighed dramatically. “Somewhat like a white aura around you? Greenish a bit, a bit blue? There's a few dark spots here and there, but everyone's got those.” Seeing as this only confused Freed even further, he added: “Damn. It's hard to explain. It's like... explaining that trees have leaves to a blind person. Basically... it's a lot of colours, but... I've had those eyes for most of my life, on and off at first, but it's not as if I could just … put that all into words and expect you to understand. I just know yours is not a bad soul. Those are really dark, and dirty. Or red like blood.”

“So you... you see them, all of them? Of all people, animals, living things?”, Freed asked.

“Only humans. But yeah, I see them all.”

Freed tried to imagine it, tried to see the world with more colours than he could, every living being surrounded by a colourful aura, but the picture in his head alone was blinding. He wasn't sure if he could grasp the concept, the magnitude, of how the world must have looked like through Bickslow's eyes. “It's... it sounds marvellous”, Freed muttered, but Bickslow snorted. He remembered how the other boy had called them, _these damn eyes of mine_ , he had said. And the black stick figure... “Why would you curse your eyes for being like that?”

“'Cause they're _cursed_ , that's why”, Bickslow muttered. The worry in his voice grew stronger, and he stared at the grass between his feet now, the bandage forgotten on his knees. Then he exhaled sharply. “You remember that fat merc with the monster eyebrows?”, he asked, and Freed nodded. Of course, there was something more his eyes did – whatever had happened to the mercenary, it had to do with them. “I took his soul.”

Before Freed could find a way to express the pure shock he felt when the meaning of his words sank in, Bickslow lifted a hand as if to silence him pre-emptively. “Or maybe I didn't. I don't know. When I do that... the souls kinda... They change. It makes whoever is stupid enough to look into my eyes kinda helpless. They do what I want then, until... until I break it off. Then they turn back to normal.” He spoke with a unusually serious voice, as if he was trying to push away something that had come up in his mind with only moderate success. Freed didn't have to ask to understand it were bad memories. Then, he snorted once more, a nasty grin playing at his lips. “So if you're a demon, I guess I'm the grim reaper or something.”

There was a certain dark pride in these words that Freed found nearly repulsive, even more so as Bickslow broke into another fit of mirthless laughter at Freed's slightly horrified face.

“I still fail to see why this all is even remotely funny to you”, he said in a determined voice, but still very quietly.

Much to his surprise, Bickslow's laughter died down in an instant. “Never said it was”, he replied with a defeated shrug.

Freed had the feeling it wouldn't help to tell Bickslow that if something wasn't funny, people usually didn't laugh. “Anyway, you're not the grim reaper. You don't... tear the souls out of their bodies.”

“You know that for sure?”, Bickslow asked, and as Freed couldn't reply with more than silence, he snorted once more. “See, I don't either.”

It was probably for the best if they changed the topic. Something heavy was looming over them right now, like a dark cloud waiting for the thunderstorm. “The people in the circus you've spoken about...”, Freed started. “If they weren't wizards...”

“They didn't know a thing about what these eyes are, 'cept that they are magic”, Bickslow said darkly. “But it didn't matter to them that I had freaky eyes. To ... most of them, anyway.”

“But you're not with them any more...?” Freed would have assumed that if his friends had accepted him, Bickslow had no reason to be where he was now, so there must have been more to it.

“We're more alike than you think, I guess”, Bickslow replied, so quietly that Freed could hardly hear him. “I screwed up big time, too; last winter.”

“And then you ran away”, Freed said flatly. Yes, beyond everything, they were very similar, even if he didn't know if it was a shock or a relief to realise this.

“Yeah, kinda”, Bickslow said, sounding far away and still as if it wasn't the full truth.

Thoughts rotated through Freed's mind, thoughts of thin blankets in dark alleys, about stealing food and eyes hidden behind a bandage, and a black stick figure on his forehead, about running away until he had forgotten what from. Was that where he was going right now?  
What had happened to plans like defeating his father's marshal, to living up to his brothers? Had it all gone up in smoke with his mistake, had he lost any right to pursue what he had wanted for himself?

And what had that been? His father had made it no secret that having a third son was out of the ordinary, that he hardly had any bigger plans for Freed, even if he still had had his role to play. But what about himself?

Had he lost any right to aspire to something more than _this_?

“I don't want that”, he finally said, more to himself than to Bickslow.

“Great. If you have any other idea, feel free to tell me any time”, Bickslow muttered sarcastically.

But something inside Freed had changed, something important, he could feel it in the new resolve that was building up within him.

It was true, he had spent the last day running away. But what from, the mercenaries, or himself? And where to? He still had no idea where to turn to, but now it appeared to him that he would never solve that problem if he continued to run from hideout to hideout without a purpose. He wouldn't, under no circumstances, run away until running away was all he was still able to do. It was not who he was; he was – and had always wanted to be – someone who stood up for his mistakes. He had always wanted to be a good man, at the very least, even if he had no important place in his father's plan of things. He could still work to find that place, and he always had. And apparently, he had a good soul, whatever that meant. Even if he had done something terrible, he didn't want to be a demon.

Maybe it was more important than knowing what had happened exactly two days ago that he would turn around to face his mistakes instead of fleeing them.

\---

 

Once he had made his decision, Freed felt grimly empowered, and for one reason or another, hardly afraid any more about what his father might do or think.

When he had announced his decision to Bickslow, though, the other boy had stared at him in bewilderment. “You've gone mad, haven't you?”, he said, eyebrows raised which made the stick figure on his forehead raise its arms. “They send _Red Minotaur_ after you. You've seen those guys, they're armed to their teeth and don't fool around. So either their castle isn't the only thing your family has up in the clouds, or I'd guess your old man is pretty damn angry at you.”

“It doesn't matter”, Freed replied. “The mercenaries aren't the real problem here. I need to face my father. I need to face my mistakes. No running away. I have to trust that everything will clear up, but it only will if I go back home.”

“Now aren't you determined all out of sudden”, Bickslow muttered sarcastically. “What happened to hiding behind trash piles and bushes?”

“What you said about my soul...”, Freed answered. Whatever made him trust Bickslow, the thought made him feel relieved. “I want it to stay that way. I don't want to compromise who I am. I have made a mistake, and in order to stay who I am, I need to face the consequences.”

Bickslow, much to Freed's surprise, didn't answer. Instead, he went over to picking up pebbles and throwing them away aimlessly.

Freed took some more minutes sitting in the grass to sort out his thoughts and come up with a now definite course of action. With his new resolve, it wasn't as difficult any more.

“Hey... Freed”, Bickslow said after a while. He still sounded very unlike the boy he had met the day before, who always had a bit of levity in his tone. “I've gotta do something. Here in the village. I'll be off for an hour or so, so if you've left until then...” He made an attempt to offer Freed his hand, with a grin on his face that seemed a little fake. “What do you rich guys say, it's been an honour?”

Only now Freed realised that his decision, as necessary as it was, would also separate him most likely from his new ally. The thought was odd; for just about a day, he had known someone else with eye magic, someone so unlike himself and yet so alike. It was inconceivable in theory, but it still saddened him to know that now, they would part ways. Though it was probably for the better. As long as he had no real control over his eye, he probably was a danger for the people around him, and he did not want to be a danger to Bickslow. He had tested his luck long enough.  
He would have to think of measures of how to deal with his situation when he had returned to the castle.

“It truly has been”, Freed replied, taking the hand and shaking it firmly. “Forgive my curiosity, but what are you going to do now?”

“No idea”, said Bickslow flatly and shrugged his shoulders. “Wait here for a few days, probably. Until the mercs forgot my face. Then I'll probably head back to my alley.”

“I'm certain the mercenaries will stop looking for you once I have reached my father and he cancelled whatever contract he had with them”, Freed said. He had already thought about this. “Speaking of which. You are familiar with the surroundings of Crocus? I need a way back to the mountains, and I would very much like to evade the mercenaries. I want to return with my head held high, not bound and gagged like a hunting trophy.”

At this, Bickslow snorted. “Yeah, I'd say that's pretty wise. Guess it's best if you follow the river, there's a bridge on the other side of town. Cross the river, follow it up to the mountains.”

“There will be another bridge north of Crocus”, said Freed, nodding and visualising the route in his mind. “I've come across it yesterday.”

“You've got it. If you've not completely given up on hiding, maybe having a river between you and the mercs is not that bad.” Bickslow got up from the ground, went to grab the stolen backpack which stood next to the fireplace and his bandage, which had lain forgotten in the grass, and turned around to Freed without wrapping it over his face. “So that's goodbye, moss-head”, he said.

For a second, Freed hoped he would grin, but he didn't. Freed himself got up from the ground now, too, feeling something heavy in his stomach. “I fear it is. Goodbye, Bickslow. I wish you good luck on your way.”

“Don't let your old man eat you”, Bickslow said, and Freed indeed smiled a little, but before he could reply anything, Bickslow had jumped onto the roof of the shack and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is really long, but was surprisingly easy to write despite the gloomy atmosphere. It was also one of the chapters that were more or less set from the start - I always knew Bickslow was going to leave at a certain point, and I always knew he was going to tell Freed about his soul.  
> Sometimes when I write, I notice that a song I like listening to influences my writing subconsciously, and I think it happened here - the "mood song" for this chapter is "What's left of me" by Avantasia.


	9. Alone

Being alone once more felt entirely unusual. The chattering of the birds sounded so incredibly loud now, the little breeze more like a storm howling around the towers of the castle. The last remainders of their fire crackled below the barrier, emitting only a faint glow. All was silent, and Freed did not dare to make even the littlest noise. But at the same time, everything seemed so loud all out of sudden; a loud, oppressing silence that wasn't supposed to lower his spirits, but did anyway.

Freed spent a little more time around the shack, blending out the renewed pulsing of his eye and the strange gloominess as best as he could. He had to recapitulate his plans of how to get back to his father in detail, had to estimate the time it would take him to return, make plans where to rest. Judging by the position of the sun and the time of the year, the day had already approached afternoon, and Freed didn't want to spend another night out in the open, if possible. Given his limited knowledge of the surrounding area it was probably unavoidable, though; but if he could choose, he would prefer to rest close to the mountains in an area he knew at least a little better. As he saw it, he had a long way ahead of him, so it was a good thing he hadn't spend the day so far with running.

How to get his point across to his father once he had returned, however, was something Freed tried hard _not_ to think about. Whenever the thoughts popped up in his mind, he tried to block them out, clinging to the only thing, the only fact, that he allowed to matter: He had not intended to throw his tutor out of the window, and he deeply regretted what had happened. He would do whatever it took to repent for his crime, his sin. But as well as Freed thought to know his father, this wasn't enough to predict the outcome of their inevitable confrontation. It was a risk he had to take.

A while after Bickslow had left, Freed felt ready to go. He had nothing to take with him, so he only had a last look onto the shack, took in a deep, reassuring breath and left into the opposite direction in which Bickslow had gone. He didn't think he knew the other boy very well, but he hadn't seemed in the best spirits as he had left, either; and given his usual smirks and laughter, it seemed odd. But it was hardly surprising considering the heaviness of their last discussion. There was no room for levity when it came to his eye; their eyes. The matter was too grave. But at the very least, Freed knew now that he wasn't the only one with these... special circumstances. There was someone else. Someone he would probably never see again, which was a decidedly uncomfortable realisation. But it would go away, it would fade into the background once Freed had returned to his father's castle. It just needed time; he told himself that in an attempt to calm his thoughts and increase his focus, but for some reason or another, it didn't work, not this time.

He had made his decision, and once set on a course of action, Freed did not back down. He didn't doubt it was the right thing to do, for the first time since his personal odyssey had started.

The way back to the castle was quickly cut short, though. After only a few steps, an unusual noise, loud even against the birds, called Freed's attention away from his thoughts and the way ahead. It came from the other side of the shack, a movement in the bushes, rustling in the twigs. And if Freed gave in to his own more paranoid thoughts, it even sounded like footsteps.

Freed's first thought was that Bickslow might have changed his mind about what he had to do in the village and had returned, but wouldn't he come back the same way he had left, over the shack's roof?

The noises grew louder, it now were most definitely heavy footsteps; more than one pair of feet, too.

Freed had always preferred being safe to being sorry, and so, even if it was only a suspicion, he quickly turned on his heel and ran back to the shack. Inside, he hid below one of the windows. And not one second too early.

Someone passed by the window, Freed could see the shadow. Another followed, and then another. They moved carefully, even slowly, but their footsteps were still loud, as if they were wearing heavy boots. Freed did his best to keep his breath calm and quiet for as long as the shadows were still near.

Seconds passed and the shadows vanished, but not the footsteps. The persons they belonged to were still there, moving around the shack.

Freed shot a glance at the door frame. To remain hidden, he needed to move a little closer towards the corner of the room, they had burned down the door and now the frame was big and open and easy to look into. He opted to stay down, crawled on the floor towards the corner of the room, a blind spot for the people outside.

“Dammit!”, shouted a voice outside the shack, an eerily familiar voice. Freed stopped dead in his tracks, held his breath before he realised that now, more than ever, he needed to hide. His magic might have returned, but he still had no weapon to defend himself with should he need to. “I'd have bet they'd be here. Look at the embers! Already dying!”

“Calm down, stupid”, said another familiar voice. “They've clearly been here. And that there are still embers means that it hasn't been long, either.”

It couldn't be, it simply couldn't. Freed hadn't felt particularly safe after Bickslow and him had escaped the day before, but when he looked at it from a logical perspective, without his fear to be found clouding his judgement, there were things that did not add up. The surrounding area of Crocus was _vast_. How could the mercenaries, in only one day, have found him, or them, here? Specifically here at this shack, in this village? It couldn't have been the fire, at least not solely.

But right now, Freed had other problems to worry about than finding out why the mercenaries were back. He needed an escape. He would go home on his own terms, he wouldn't allow it to be maimed by a group of brutes who seemed to hunt him for the fun of it. He had already escaped them thrice, thanks to Bickslow and luck; but since one wasn't there and the other not reliable, he had to find a way on his own. And he had an advantage, the mercenaries hadn't taken notice of him yet. It wasn't a big advantage, since they would surely look into the shack next, but as long as they were still observing the fire, Freed had a chance to take measures.

He had a look around. The shack had been a barn once, but wasn't very big. There were multiple, mostly half-broken windows, a door frame without a door, and no back exit. There was only one convenient way in and out.

As careful as he could, Freed crawled closer to the door while the mercenaries argued about something outside. There were only three shadows on the ground, and not six, but Freed pushed the question about the other three to the back of his mind. One task at a time.

Carefully, Freed dared to sneak a peek around the corner. As expected, the bushy-browed man and the redhead were there, plus a third man with bristly black hair that looked like a horse brush. Given the bushy-browed man's weight and the redhead's broad shoulders, he had a chance of 66 percent that his plan's first stage would work. That had to do for now.

They seemed to have discovered the writings next to the fire and had identified it as a barrier spell. But Bickslow had said they weren't wizards, and Freed needed to rely on that for his plan to work.

He had no time to waste, stretched his arm into the open door frame and started writing. He needed to be quick, but at least that was not a problem. He focussed on his hand, writing runes onto the dirty ground next to him.

“So that little squirrel has been using his magic to suppress the smoke, you say?”, said the redhead.

“I guess, yeah”, said an unknown voice, obviously the third mercenary. “I don't know much about magic and that stuff, but my brother has a friend in the Rune Knights. He says magic can do things like that.”

“Dooley will know”, growled the bushy-browed man. “Once he's back from the river. We're wasting time here starring into that fire. I doubt he'll just pop out of the embers, wizard or not. Let's search the area, I want that squirrel and that runt with the bandaged face where I can see them.”

His voice was dark and heavy, more so than Freed remembered it. An uneasy feeling crept over him, not least because the mercenaries had mentioned the river – how did they know that he and Bickslow had been there in the morning? But at least, Freed had finished his runes and could retract his arm from the door.

A murmuring went through the small company, and two shadows vanished into different directions; a big, round one and another that was thinner; the man with the bushy brows and the man with the horse brush hair.

The last shadow, the redhead, came closer, though. Freed got up onto his feet, steadied himself for a split second. It was necessary, and his chances of success had risen to a near 100 percent.

But at first, he needed to be seen, even if he was reluctant to leave the security of the shadow. His advantage was that he had time to take initiative, so that was exactly what he was going to do.

It were just two steps and then he stood in the light that fell in from the door.

He looked at the redhead, the redhead looked at him. In contrast to the day before, he had one arm plastered in a cast and scratches on his face. Everything fell silent for a second, before the mercenary narrowed his eyes and raised his voice: “He's here!”

Freed immediately jumped into action, stumbled back as the redhead drew his sword, a little clumsily due to the cast being in the way of his usual movements. He turned around, ran towards the window farthest away from the door.

“What?!”, screamed the bushy-browed man from somewhere outside. “Don't touch him, he's _mine_!”

The glass of the right window pane was nearly completely broken, so that pushing it with his elbow was everything that it took for Freed to shatter it fully. With determined movements, he climbed outside.

“Stop it right there, squirrel!”, called the redhead, but Freed didn't allow himself to be deterred. Before the bigger man could follow, he would need to break the window fully, or use the door. Both actions bought Freed the time that he needed to write two very simple runes into the ground, nothing more than simple continuations of his preparations at the door.

The second window pane shattered, the redhead prepared to climb out, too. But before he managed to, an invisible force threw him back, screaming.

“What the hell?!”

The first stage of his plan had been a success, but Freed just went on. On the back side of the shack, directly opposite to the door, he placed another two continuation runes.

“He's blocked the door!”, shouted the bushy-browed man, now inside the shack. As expected, his zeal had been his downfall. Freed couldn't help a small, satisfied smirk.

“The window, too, he's moving around the shack!”, screamed the redhead, apparently back on his feet. It didn't matter, he was already inside the trap.

The last mercenary with the bristly hair had been clever enough to first move around the shack, unfortunately. Freed nearly ran into him on the third side of the building, and only a quick turn on his heel and a dodge rescued him. The man had an axe drawn and followed Freed around the corner to the back of the shack, huffing and puffing and growling like an oversized dog.

Inside the shack, the mercenaries were starting to get impatient, hammered against the wall and the barrier at the door and shouted various insults. Freed needed to be really, really quick now and stay close to the shack's walls for his plan to work; he needed to block the windows on the other side of the barn before the mercenaries had the idea to break them and climb outside.

The man with the axe was still behind him, nearly caught up when Freed reached the front of the shack. He prepared to start writing immediately when he reached the right spot where the front and the unprotected side of the shack met.

Accompanied by angry screams and shouts from inside the shack (“Get him, dammit!” - “Don't let a damn kid outrun you!”), the man with the axe lunged forward as Freed stopped and got down to his knees.

_Continuation._

Someone gripped his legs, the mercenaries inside the shack hollerred their approval. Freed nearly fell over, caught himself last second.

_Left._

Freed's heart threatened to break out of his chest with its heavy beatings when a hand closed on his writing arm. He had managed to position it correctly, though, so he didn't put up resistance. It would not be necessary.

“Got you, squirrel.”

_Right._

Two violet lines cut through the grass on the ground, connecting his new runes with the old ones at the door and the other side of the shack.

With a loud scream, the man with the axe was thrown backwards by the force of the barrier running directly through his outstretched arm, tearing Freed with him.

Freed found himself thrown against the mercenary who crashed into the barn's side, barely missing the axe that was flung wildly through the air. Without thinking, he struggled back to his feet, and ran.

Only behind his barrier he stopped and looked back. The force of the impact had knocked the man with the bristly hair unconscious, his axe had landed forgotten a few meters away in the grass. It had been close, really close, but it had worked.

_People over the age of fifteen are not allowed to pass this barrier within the next twenty-four hours._

The redhead and the bushy-browed man stood in the door frame, behind the violet writings that made up his barrier. Freed hadn't noticed this earlier, but the bushy-browed man looked really awful; he had a black eye and a split lip, and his beard looked as if parts of it had been burned off. An uneasy feeling crept over Freed seeing those injuries, they most certainly hadn't been there the day before. He looked over to the third mercenary. He could only see a bit of blood in the man's hair, but that was from the impact on the wall.

Freed dared to get a few steps closer, outside of the barrier nothing could happen to him. There were dark spots on the man's throat, bruises. A bodiless horror washed over Freed, what had just happened after their last encounter? He had an idea, but he didn't want to pursue it right now.

“Damn it you little rugrat”, the bushy-browed man growled, tearing Freed's attention away from his comrade. “You're going to pay for this, understood? You and your friend with the evil eye! Red Minotaur does _not_ forget.”

Another smirk ghosted over Freed's face. Everything had worked out nearly exactly as planned until here. “I don't think I will pay”, he said coldly, feeling secure because they couldn't reach him. “These barriers are erected by my rules. And my rules are absolute.”

His little moment of satisfaction was soon interrupted by a shot first and a loud crash second. Freed jumped a few steps back, alert again. It looked as if parts of the roof of the shack, a small part on the backside, came crashing down, creating a bright spot on the barn's floor where the light fell in now. Another second later, Freed heard another shot and before he knew what happened, everything was drenched into an artificial orange light, a single firework over the shack. A signal light.

The bushy-browed man laughed out darkly, while Freed was already planning again.

There were more mercenaries. At least three, the company from the day before consisted of six men. They would come here now. What had the other three talked about before? A man named Dooley was at the river? That must have been the second group. The way from the river was not long, it would only take them a few minutes to get here if they moved quickly. He could use the time to run, but then he would have them on his heel again. Or he could seize the chance and get rid of them and buy himself even more time. He had already been successful once.

What would he do if he were a mercenary, and arrived on a scene where his comrades had been caught inside the shack?

Observe the shack, observe the barrier. The mercenaries had said something else before, something like _Dooley will know_. Who was Dooley, which one of them? And how could he be of any help with the runes, unless...

Unless he knew magic, too; at least on a theoretical level, at least enough to identify the barrier and read runes, maybe he was some kind of scholar. If that was the case, Freed needed to be extra careful when dealing with him. A person who knew what they were pitted against was less likely to simply step into a trap. At the very least, it meant that Freed needed to hide his preparations. Placing one next to the door was still a safe option; at least one of them would come surely closer to see his comrades. Maybe not directly in front of the door, the inmates of the shack turned prison would surely try to warn the others. Some steps away was a better idea.

Under the protest of the caught mercenaries and the grunts of the man with the bristly hair who awoke from his unconsciousness rubbing the back of his head, Freed prepared what barriers and traps he could come up with. Once done, he look a leaf out of Bickslow's book, climbed onto a lower branch of tree at the right side of the shack and waited. It wasn't his safest option, but to get to him, the other mercenaries would have to cross a minefield of runes first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, did you really think they were gone?


	10. Interlude: Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided on a double chapter this week, because this chapter here is again very short and would feel awkward on its own. Enjoy!

Bella had grown another ten centimetres, at least, since Bickslow had seen her last. Her pigtails were blowing in the wind behind her as she chased a boy half a head taller than her through the garden. She was glowing yellow and bright like a tiny sun, almost blinding him. The boy, a strange mixture between dirty green and weirdly innocent light purple surrounding him, had made fun of a smaller kid some minutes earlier, and Bella wouldn't have it. Good girl, Indra and Oreon were raising her to be fierce.

When she finally got to the boy, though, Bella only gave him a curtain lecture which looked – slightly – unimpressive.

Bickslow chuckled at the sight of the six year old girl, her hands stemmed into her tiny hips, lecturing the other boy.

He didn't know the boy, and neither the smaller kid which Indra was currently calming down. They hadn't been at the shelter the last time he had been here. There was another boy a little off the side he knew from the last time, but the kid looked rather meek and blueish grey like a mouse; he played in the sand pretending to not be afraid of Bella. At least she made an impression on _someone_.

All in all though, everything was as usual. Bickslow hoped they would find the backpack he had placed close to the back exit of the little building that housed the emergency shelter of Gladiolus' church. The fat merc had had quite some coin with him, and Oreon, who ran the shelter, could probably make good use of it; their roof looked a little brittle and winter wasn't that far away any more, either.

After the last day he had spent with Freed, Bickslow felt the crushing weight on his shoulders that he had learned to blend out so well. Shit, he really hated this. Hated being on his own and see those familiar faces down there at the shelter, unable to just go there and say something. It wasn't even about staying anymore, at this point, after eight freaking months, it was just about saying hello.

He would have liked to keep Freed around for a while longer, but in the end, the rich kid had made up his mind so quickly. Bickslow knew somewhere deep within him that he should be happy for Freed that he had somewhere to return to, and despite everything apparently enough trust in his family that he dared to go back home. But Bickslow was selfish, too; and he really had liked the kid. Who'd have thought he would be that useful, and that magic could be that exciting? And who'd have thought that rich kids were just generally that fun to be around?

But there was no use to it. Freed would go home, Bickslow would go back to his alley. Everything would return to the way it used to be, and in a while, maybe the day would come that he had awaited for so long; the day when he wouldn't give a damn about feeling lonely any more.

And it was best he left the shelter now, who knew for how long he had sat on the tree looking at little Bella scolding a misbehaving kid.

But when he turned around to jump down from his hiding spot, he saw them, and the dark crest on their red-tinged armour, souls dirty and bloody.

Not _again_.

He had to go back to the way things had been before in a little while, that was true.

But right now he needed to find Freed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, did you really think Bicks was gone, too ;)?


	11. Magic

Minutes passed by in silent anticipation while Freed sat awkwardly in his tree. The mercenaries inside the barn shouted and screamed, increasingly angry. They used their weapons to hit against the walls, both physical and magical, Freed could hear the impacts. Even if they managed to break through the shack's wall, which was not unlikely given that one of them had an axe, the magic barriers would keep them inside. Magic couldn't be broken by physical force.

It felt like hours until something began to stir in the bushes on the front side of the barn. Freed felt the tension in his body build up, ready to observe and take action if necessary.

As expected, three mercenaries appeared from the direction of the river. Freed recognised them from the day before, especially a thin man with big, round glasses and a stern face. Like their comrades inside the shack, all of them had various injuries; bruises, scratches. One seemed to have a broken nose, even. What had just happened the day before? Had it something to do with Bickslow's method of getting rid of them?

“Careful, the ground is littered with traps!”, shouted the redhead from inside the shack. Immediately, the man with the glasses gestured his companions to stop. “And the squirrel hides here somewhere, I can smell it!”

The man's eyes narrowed, half-hidden behind glasses; much like Hal's always did when he didn't want to show his disappointment. A bright yellow light flashed, as if the sun was reflecting off of them, but stronger. Too strong.

“Be careful, men”, said the stern-faced mercenary, a cold smirk ghosting over his lips. “The squirrel is clever. There's a trap at the door, and multiple others in front of the shack. At the right side of the fire, too. He left a path close to the violet barrier, though. Stay close to it and there won't be any danger.”

Freed didn't want to trust his ears, and neither his eyes. Guided by the man with the glasses, one of the mercenaries, a man with a crossbow in his hands, manoeuvred slowly through his minefield of runes, one step at a time, until he reached the fire. The third mercenary, a burly man with a bastard sword, stayed close to the man with the glasses. Once their comrade had reached the other side of the shack, they moved out together, carefully avoiding all of Freed's runes.

Doubt began to stir inside of Freed, and mild fear. He should have run, shouldn't he? He had made a gross miscalculation, he had thought, _expected_ , these mercenaries to be as easy to capture as their comrades, had anticipated his runes to be invisible... How could this man have seen them?

A bright yellow light flashed a second time, coming from the mercenary's glasses. And now, Freed understood.

It was so simple, so banal; something he should have anticipated, should have guessed earlier. It was a careless mistake, and Freed felt infinitely stupid for having ruled it out earlier. He and Bickslow both had been idiots. The man with the glasses was Dooley.

It would not take long until they would spot him in his tree now. The mercenaries had been focussed on his runes so far, but as soon as they had left Freed's them behind, they would look up and search the area. The lack of a sword at his side made Freed feel somehow exposed, vulnerable. He needed a new plan, and very, very quickly.

Dooley and his bodyguard left the minefield behind and their cautious silence melted away from them in an instance.

“Search the grove”, Dooley ordered his companions. His bodyguard nodded mutely and began searching the bushes.

It weren't more than a few meters now, and Freed owed his concealment solely to a young tree with a pleasantly big crown that obstructed the view from their current location.

He needed to come up with a strategy, and might it be jumping down the tree and running towards the village. It sounded tempting in his head, but also risky.

He frantically scanned the area once more, trying to figure out if there was something, anything, that he hadn't noticed before, something he could use to his advantage while the mercenary with the crossbow was just a few steps short of vanishing behind the shack and Dooley's bodyguard got fed up with a pricky shrub and cut it down with his sword.

There was nothing, just the clearing with the shack, his unused traps, a few bushes, and no other houses in the vicinity. He couldn't use the shack and drawing a barrier around his tree would be detrimental to his situation. It would only trap him, and he didn't have the time to think of complicated conditions that would allow him to leave.

What he really needed right now were wings. Flying away would give him an advantage that the mercenaries could not match. But it was out of question. The pulsing in his eye reminded him what had happened the last time he had used that spell, and under no condition did he want to repeat that.

“Clear!”, shouted the mercenary from the other side of the house.

The young tree in front of Freed began to shake. Dooley still had not moved, monitored the situation through his glasses.

Freed needed to do something, and do it now. He had wanted to paralyse them, just long enough for him to get a big advantage. But to paralyse them with his Jutsu Shiki now, he would need to touch them or the ground below them to create a barrier, and that was very much impossible.

But what if he didn't?

What if he used his eye? His hand went up to the hair that covered it. It was dangerous, very much so. But he wouldn't use it on himself, and if he didn't, he wouldn't turn into a demon, would he? And they wouldn't turn into demons, either, if his writings hit them? No, they didn't have an eye like his that pulsed on his own like a foreign matter in his body. It seemed like his only solution, and it appeared, indeed, comparatively safe, though it also did incorporate a certain degree of improvisation.

Channelling his magic through his eye, Freed wrote a rune into the air. His heart was beating in his throat and he had to force his breathing to stay regular. He had never done this before. But if he understood his eye sufficiently, there was no reason that this wouldn't work.  
Through the young tree, he aimed at Dooley's bodyguard, he was probably the greatest threat right now. Then, with only a minimal gesture, he commanded the rune to move.

The bodyguard quite literally didn't realise what hit him before a violet rune appeared on his armour and he froze solid in his tracks, his sword still raised to cut down the tree.

Of course, Dooley registered the use of magic in an instant. “He's here, come over!”, he shouted; one hand at his glasses, the other drawing a pistol.

Freed didn't have the time to congratulate himself on the success of his improvised paralysing spell. The mercenary with the crossbow was running around the shack, Freed could hear the footsteps, and Dooley already took aim with his pistol.

Freed's mind went a little blank as he jumped down into the young tree, lacking the grace to keep himself on his feet. A shot rang over the clearing, but instead of a bullet, a rapidly unfolding net wound around the bigger tree in which Freed had just sat. He stumbled back onto his feet, hidden behind the frozen body of Dooley's bodyguard, turned towards the back of the shack and decidedly ignoring that this net could have been – quite literally – his ultimate downfall.

The third mercenary came into his sight, and Freed didn't waste any second and repeated his new invention and hit the man with a paralysing rune. Just like Dooley's bodyguard, the man froze instantly.

“So there's more to you than Rune Magic, squirrel”, said Dooley. His voice was close, so close that it gave Freed a little scare. He turned his head left and right, but there was no sign of the last mercenary between him and his freedom. “Strange, I can't seem to figure out what, exactly.”

He had copied Freed's actions, hid on the other side of his frozen bodyguard. And he didn't sound frightened at all, rather... amused. Interested.

Freed didn't answer, instead looked towards the ground and searched for signs of any reachable body parts of his adversary. He just needed a little space to write his rune.

“It's eye magic, isn't it?”, Dooley went on as if he and Freed were having a normal conversation over a cup of tea. “Just like your friend with the Figure Eyes. But yours... I haven't seen anything like it.”

Freed tried to ignore the man's words, though a part of him got excited. Figure Eyes, that was what Bickslow's magic was called. Freed wanted to lament that he couldn't tell Bickslow, but he had to come back to that later. He had found Dooley's feet behind the frozen bodyguard; feet wearing polished black boots. They were turned towards him.

“It's rare, I think.” Dooley's voice was coming from somewhere else now, somewhere higher up. “Valuable, probably. Very, very valuable...”

His voice was thoughtful and unsettlingly calm and soft; it drove cold and hot waves down Freed's neck. He started to write his runes, wanted to hit Dooley's boots. The man was sorely mistaken if he thought that his non-conversation would distract Freed.

Something clicked from above him.

“Oh squirrel, you need to be more careful”, said Dooley, still higher up and closer. Freed's head shot up, and he found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol.

Frightened, Freed yanked his body forward and his rune flew away into a different direction, hit the shack without any effect.

Dooley shot, and another net unfolded. It hit Freed's legs, made him fall flat onto his stomach. Something clicked again as the pistol was reloaded. Freed frantically fought against the net that tied his legs to the ground, winding in the grass like a snake. Dooley, with the most unsettlingly smug chuckling, aimed now directly at him, through his bodyguard's frozen arms, still using the man like a shield.

Struggling was senseless, it only costed time. If the mercenary aimed, he had to, as well.

Without thinking, he threw a rune into the direction of his opponent, but missed. Aiming was more difficult with one cheek pressed into the grass, writing with his non-dominant hand.

Dooley would shoot any second now, he needed to get away. Or simply move – the nets weren't incredibly large, otherwise the last one would have caught him completely. Half of his body length distance would mean that Dooley had to aim again. Freed needed to keep on moving.

He rolled towards his left with all the force he could muster; onto his back and back onto his stomach as Dooley shot, and missed. He had torn the net with him, it seemed; it now wound around his legs like a chain. Without wasting a thought on it, Freed rolled over again. He needed to keep Dooley re-aiming, had to keep him busy... if he could use a rune that would create distraction even if it missed...

The pistol clicked again, and Freed rolled onto his back once more. He was getting closer and closer towards the shack, and with every roll, he saw more of Dooley's feet and legs appearing behind his bodyguard.

He prepared another spell, while the dark hole that was Dooley's pistol turned towards him once more. His eye pulsed faster, stung a little, as Freed sent the rune towards his attacker. It was a different rune, a different spell; and even though it missed Dooley, the ground next to him caught fire.

Startled, Dooley jumped away from the burning grass. “You little...!”

Freed followed it up by another, identical rune. He had a new plan, maybe that would work. He just needed to see more of Dooley so that aiming would get simpler again.

A patch of grass next to Dooley and his bodyguard was burning now, forcing Dooley to give up parts of his cover. Freed could see his side now totally. He set the ground in front of Dooley on fire, too, causing the man to step back and curse.

As he repeated it and the grass was now burning in front and next to Dooley, the mercenary finally gave up on hiding and turned towards Freed, eyes narrowed and visibly angry. He still had his gun pointing at Freed, steadied it now with his other hand.

Dooley didn't hesitate, and shot. Freed had only a split second to decide whether he should roll over to avoid the net or attack, but he had already prepared the rune.

Dooley froze solid, his face an angry grimace, his glasses shining in their yellow light. The net unfolded on top of Freed, tying him to the ground.

As the tension in his body slowly dissipated, all seemed silent, suddenly. Not even the angry noises and shouts of the mercenaries inside the shack seemed really loud, though they made Freed aware that they were still there. He had had nearly forgotten about them.

He had won, and part of him couldn't quite believe it. Though it wasn't over. He still had to get out of the net, which could prove difficult considering that it was apparently equipped with small metallic hooks at the edges. Their sole purpose seemed to be to make sure that once something had been caught, it couldn't escape. If he struggled too much, or tried to roll over, the hooks would get entangled in the clothes on his back, or in other parts of the net, and Freed would even be off worse.

Currently, the net was stretched out over him, the hooks pressed into the grass. He needed to carefully free one hand, and then one side, so that he could slide out of the net slowly and make sure no hook got caught up in his clothes. Once he had gotten rid of the first net, he could free his legs from the other.

Freed had to consider himself lucky that the hooks were, just like the net, comparatively small. He wondered it the net was even meant to catch humans with it, and wasn't more meant as a trap for small animals. Squirrels, for example. Dooley's pistol hadn't been that big either, not like the large harpoon-like guns his tutor had shown to him in his weapon's classes.

Once he had loosened enough of the hooks with his hands, around his sides and above his head, Freed pushed himself out of his prison centimetre per centimetre, now and then removing a hook from his body or clothing. A particularly nasty one had gotten caught up in his hair, and pulling it out had been more unpleasant than the scratches some others had left on his arms. But in the end, though it was a tedious undertaking, he had freed himself from the first obstacle. Now only the the net around his feet was keeping him from leaving this clearing behind for good.

But it appeared as if the tides had turned against him another time. It didn't take long before he heard footsteps in the bushes once more; heavy boots again.

Of course, the signal light... the mercenaries must have stationed reinforcements around the village. And this time, it didn't look that bright for Freed. He tried hastily to get rid of the net around his legs, but of course, hectic movements only made the hooks get entangled even further into his trousers or each other.

The footsteps came closer. It was just one man, apparently; so maybe if he only hit him with a paralysing rune immediately...

But he never needed to. As soon as the mercenary came into sight, a weight was lifted from Freed's shoulders.

It was a tall, bald man with a raised club; but he was dazed and his eyes were unfocussed. And with skin that had turned a shade of purple that couldn't be natural, he looked significantly like a troll from an illustrated novel. There was a swishing noise, far up in the branches of the tree Freed had hid in.

“What the hell...?”, said a familiar voice, and Freed couldn't help grinning a little. “Can't remember any wax works like that around here.”

The troll-mercenary hit himself with his own club unceremoniously, and slumped onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. Then, someone jumped down into the lower tree branches, and finally, leapt into sight.

Bickslow looked caught somewhere between amazement and boredom. “Looks like you didn't need any help”, he said and shrugged, but then started to laugh. “Damn, care to tell me how you creamed them? This looks really kinda fun...”

“Later”, Freed replied, pointing at his legs. Despite this particular mercenary not being a threat, it had still reminded him that there were probably reinforcements around that would arrive soon.

“Oh... sure.” Bickslow produced a knife from his belt, and with a few cuts, the net was no more.

“We shouldn't stay here. There must be more of them.”

Bickslow sighed, but nodded in agreement. “Where to? I wouldn't recommend the village.”

“River.”

Freed manoeuvred them through the minefield that he hadn't needed, making sure Bickslow didn't cross the barrier that would not allow him to leave during the next day, as well. And once they had left the last trap behind, they started running once more, towards the river, accompanied by shouts and insults of the trapped mercenaries that quickly became indistinguishable background noise.

 

\---

 

Fortunately, Freed's prediction had been accurate and they reached the riverside without meeting any more mercenaries. He mused it was probably because however many men were still in the village, the signal fire would draw them to the shack first. The trapped mercenaries would surely sent them after their targets next, but until then, he and Bickslow could at least bring some distance between themselves and their pursuers.

They ran next to the river for what felt to Freed with his pounding heart and significantly shorter legs like hours, but could hardly have been more than fifteen minutes in reality. When Bickslow stopped next to the bridge they had spoken about earlier, Freed definitely panted a little heavier than his ally.

“What now, back to the mountains?”, Bickslow asked, nodding towards the bridge.

Freed, supporting himself by stemming his arms onto his knees, had a short look around before answering. They had left the village behind by what could hardly be more than two kilometres, and while there were apparently no signs of more mercenaries, they couldn't be sure that no one had followed them. If he were the redhead or the bushy-browed man, what would he do?

“Yes, preferably, but... I'm certain they will sent whoever remained in that village to get us”, Freed replied. “If we keep to my original plan and move on the other side of the river, they could easily spot us and maybe swim over, or something comparable. They also have archers.”

“Come on, buddy. You make it sound as if we're dealing with half an army”, Bickslow said with a casual shrug. “They've got archers, we've got a Freed. You make one of these crazy little barriers, and everything's fine. I take control of the others and make them knock themselves out, problem solved.”

Something about the way Bickslow spoke left a nasty taste in Freed's mouth. He remembered how the mercenary with the club had quite literally knocked himself out, and how the other mercenaries had looked, nearly all injured. He pushed the thought away to the back of his mind, unwilling to deal with it now. “I can't use my barriers if we want to stay unnoticed”, he said instead, resulting in a questioning look from Bickslow.

“What the...?”

“The man who shot at me, the man with the glasses”, Freed said. “Dooley. We've been blind, Bickslow. He is a wizard.”

“A wizard...? Why should he work for the mercs then, wizards have their own guilds?”, Bickslow half-asked, half-stated, the questioning look on his face turning a little confused. He looked goofy that way; his big, opened mouth seemingly occupying about half of his face, and Freed would have liked to laugh at his expression, but they had no time to waste. Every second they stood still was a second in which potential followers could catch up to them.

“It doesn't matter why or how, it's only important that he can sense and detect my barriers. That's also how they could find us here so quickly. We can't rely on magic, and also, you had the moment of surprise on your side yesterday when you caught the man with the bushy eyebrows. I'd rather not rely on luck and surprise if I can avoid it.”

Bickslow looked at him as if he had just told him that the sky was green and the trees pink, but came back to his wits quickly with a slight shaking of his head. “Oh... okay? So... you... say we stay out of sight for now? And still go back to the mountains?”

“The earlier I reach my father and he calls off the mercenaries, the better”, said Freed and nodded. He slowly came back to his breath and straightened up. “Is there a forest maybe, or another village where we can hide on the other side of the river?”

“I... guess, yeah. I'm not usually on the other side of the river”, said Bickslow. Then, he stretched out his arm and pointed towards the horizon, vaguely into the direction in which Crocus lay. “I think there must be a grove or something in that direction, but no guarantee I'm right on that.”

“Better than waiting to be found here”, muttered Freed. He gave a nod to Bickslow, who gestured his approval.

In the next moment, both boys started to run again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not Sunday yet, but still: Happy Easter holidays to you all!


	12. Crossroads

Once they had left the riverside behind a good bit, Bickslow slowed down the pace to a light jog, allowing Freed to come close again. He noticed his legs were getting heavier again, but he made himself go on still. The farer they receded from the village, the more it appeared as if Bickslow, too, was reaching the limits of his physical capacity, so that, after what must have been another hour of jogging across fields and meadows, both boys agreed to stop and take a break.

Bickslow almost immediately let himself fall onto the ground and leant back against a freshly harvested bale of straw, while Freed had a look around first.

Not far away, indeed a forest or grove began to spread towards Crocus, so Bickslow had been right. In the other direction he could see the rooftops of more farms, probably the next settlement or village. The river wasn't visible from where they were now, and though the land was a little hilly, he couldn't see any followers yet. Hoping that it would stay that way, Freed joined his ally on the ground, copying his position and leaning back onto the straw bale.

His feet were positively burning, and he felt as if he had run more in the last two days than he had in his entire life before. At least Bickslow wasn't looking that much better, he had taken off his tattered footwear and seemed to stretch his toes, and his overgrown hair was sticking to his sweaty forehead. Freed had to admit it had been a little demotivating to always run several metres behind, even if only due to the other boy's long legs.

Minutes passed with Freed trying to slow his pulse down to a normal frequency, while still breathing too quickly. Bickslow, apart from occasionally cracking his joints while stretching toes and legs, was doing the same, until a soft cackling escaped him. In no time, the cackling grew louder and he was doubling up with laughter. In an adrenaline-induced fit of madness, Freed found himself chuckling as well.

It felt as if a good portion of the tension he had not realised he was holding was lifted.

“Seriously, it's never boring around you”, Bickslow finally managed to say. “The look on these mercs' faces, tricked and trapped by a kid! Priceless!”

Though feeling a little flattered, Freed knew the reality was more bland than Bickslow thought and answered: “I was lucky. Had I not heard them approaching, I'm not certain it would have ended that favourably for me. But so, I could prepare for their arrival. And don't forget that Dooley had me caught with that net.”

Bickslow raised a brow, and it looked a little as if he was non-verbally mocking Freed for his humility. “About that guy... Dooley? You think he's a wizard?”

Freed thought to hear a trace of scepticism in his voice.

“Yes”, he replied. “In fact, I am fully certain that he is. He was able to locate my runes, even though I hid them.”

“Normal people can't do that, I guess”, Bickslow half-asked, and Freed nodded.

“I have learned to conceal them in a way that they only become visible once activated, and non-magical people have no means of looking through that concealment. But that isn't the only proof I have.”

Bickslow raised his second brow, prompting Freed to explain more. “I grew suspicious when the first group of mercenaries arrived at the shack. They were specifically observing the fireplace, and even mentioned how I used my runes to suppress the smoke. But what had me worried even more was that Dooley and his men were, at that time, examining the riverside. How could they have known we've been there, and how could they even find us in the village, when Crocus has such a vast surrounding area?”

“Ain't got a clue, maybe they got lucky?”, Bickslow offered, shrugging his shoulders. “At least that'd be my usual guess, but since you think it's because of your barriers, there's no point in playing games with that.”

“I was thinking back of the times I encountered the mercenaries. The first time was on he mountain road leading to my father's castle. That was coincidence. The second time they came after me, in Crocus, I thought they had merely followed the river down and taken the most logical assumption of me hiding in the next biggest town, but I had used a rune to dry myself, that must have given my initial position away. Following my track couldn't have been difficult for people with knowledge of the area; a lot of townspeople took notice of me in the district I first entered. Later, when they followed me, I used barrier after barrier, and they always seemed to find me, no matter where I went.”

“Because you basically left a trail of info behind for them”, said Bickslow, nodding slowly.

“Correct. And when they found us in your alley, I had recently practised runes for a Jutsu Shiki I intended to cast on my escape.”

“So it's your fault they found us and I can't go back to _my alley and my favourite fishing place_?”, Bickslow said darkly, his head turned slightly down so that his hair cast a shadow over his bony, tattooed face in the late afternoon sun.

Freed looked away, self-conscious as guilt washed over him once more. If not for him, Bickslow wouldn't have been dragged into this mess. “I... yes. I beg your---”

From behind his back, a shrill laughter erupted. “Got you!”

Relief and mild annoyance mixed in Freed's stomach as he turned back around to find Bickslow doubling up in another fit of laughter. And slowly, Freed grew suspicious of his habits regarding his tongue, because it couldn't be normal that it was hanging out so often as it apparently did. “You need to stop being jerked around that easily, buddy.”

For one reason or another, while still being mildly annoyed, the relief that Freed felt grew stronger seeing Bickslow laugh without any malice directed at him, tongue out or not. “It's not funny, Bickslow”, he just said silently, already anticipating it to do exactly nothing to stop his ally from finding amusement in his embarrassment.

Eventually, the laughter died down all on its own. “So that guy with the glasses is what exactly? A magical boyscout snooping for spells?”

Glad that the conversation had changed to more factual topics, Freed was quick to nod and elaborate more on his theory regarding Dooley. “More or less, yes. If I had to make a guess, I would say he uses Archive Magic that is tied to his glasses somehow, or a variant of it. He locates any forms of Jutsu Shiki use and then singles out the incidents that are out of the ordinary, like the smoke-repelling charm or the shrinking barrier inside the river. I have no idea why a man of that calibre would work for a mercenary guild instead of a wizard's guild, but if my assumption is correct he might simply like the feeling of superiority over his comrades. He might also profit from their martial abilities, as Archive Magic is not combat-oriented and more of a supporting nature.”

Bickslow had at this point stopped laughing completely, and instead, stared at Freed slack-jawed. “You're really smart, you know”, he said simply. Freed felt a little blush creeping onto his cheeks. “It'd taken me ages to figure that out, plus I don't even know what Archive Magic is.”

“It's nothing special”, said Freed, trying to wave off the surge of satisfaction he felt. “My brothers can do so much more than that, they'd have figured that out much quicker.”

As a reply, Bickslow scrutinised him with a look that seemed to turn his insides out again. Freed wondered if it had something to do with Bickslow reading his soul, but the cold and hot feeling that he had felt before was missing this time.

When he let his eyes wander somewhere else again, Bickslow exhaled slowly. “I don't know about your brothers, buddy”, he said then, “But I guess just because they're supposedly so smart, doesn't mean you can't be, too.”

Freed wanted to reply that it still mattered, because the only thing that he had and his brothers hadn't was something that had plunged his world into chaos from the first moment it had appeared, but couldn't bring himself to say it. “It's not important right now”, he said instead. “We've got away, that is all that matters. Connected to that... didn't you say you had business in the village? Why did you return?”

“Came across a bunch of patrolling mercs, of course”, Bickslow said plainly, buying into the change of topics. “Then I saw the crest on their armours and figured I better go back and warn you. Had no idea you had everything under control”, he added with an undertone of teasing in his voice.

Freed couldn't help but feel a little thankful, admitting to himself that if their situations would have been reversed, he would have done the same. “And you took one of them with you”, he said, remembering the mercenary with the club who had knocked out Dooley first and then himself second.

“And stole the other one's knife when I saw the signal light, yeah. I don't know if you noticed, but these guys are fighters, and I'm not.”

Something that had been safely stored in the back of Freed's mind wormed its way back to the surface. The man with the bushy brows, the redhead, Dooley... they all had been injured, and they all had been in the company that had pursued them the day before. “So you took control of him as means to defend yourself”, Freed said. “To fight in your stead.”

Noticing the seriousness with which Freed spoke, Bickslow frowned. “Yeah?”, he drawled.

In return, Freed exhaled slowly. He hadn't wanted to feel it, the disappointment that had crawled through him when the thought had first come to his mind, but now it grew so strong that he couldn't ignore it any longer. “Bickslow... What did you make the mercenary you controlled do yesterday?”

“Why's that important now?”, said Bickslow, sounding honestly confused. “It's been yesterday and yesterday's past.”

But Freed didn't want to let it go. “Did you lead them home like I asked you to?”

He had anticipated it now, the shrill laughter that followed his question. It felt sobering, though he asked himself why. It was obvious he couldn't know his ally very well, they had met hardly more than twenty-four hours ago.

“You could say that”, Bickslow sneered, and the temperature around them seemed to drop by several degrees. “But making one guy merrily go home like a good boy isn't gonna do anything about his five cronies. It had to be a little more creative than that.”

“So you made them fight”, Freed said tonelessly, voicing a concern that he had already had for a while.

“Carrot-head was really eager to get back at monster-brows after the first few punches”, Bickslow said, darkly amused at his memory and cackling a bit. “Was really fun to watch once the others had gotten into it, too.”

“I didn't want them to get hurt”, Freed said, but Bickslow's laughter broke out again and only got shriller. “They were only doing what my father contracted them to do.”

“How very _decent_ of you”, Bickslow replied mockingly. Freed felt repulsed by his tone, by the way he grinned, broad and toothy but mirthless. “Too bad they're not gonna treat you any better 'cause of that.”

“It's true that they are probably brutal”, said Freed, feeling more and more alienated from the boy next to him. “But that doesn't mean that they deserved being goaded into fighting each other.”

“Oh you can be sure that they deserved it”, Bickslow said lowly, his unnatural eyes motionlessly focussing on Freed's forehead. With his bony face and the shadows his hair cast over it, he looked even a little menacing. Had Freed really believed to have known enough of his ally so that feeling so disappointed, so revolted, by his casual tone and sudden change from his light-hearted attitude was justified? “Their souls are dirtier than the trash piles back in Crocus.”

Something like vague understanding bubbled up inside Freed, but it was only of a factual nature. He had grown up believing in justice, in fair but firm punishment for crimes committed, but never in punishment for simply being not a good person after someone else's standards.

He didn't return anything to Bickslow, he didn't even know what to say. But his disappointment and concern were probably showing, since Bickslow let out a grunt a few moments later and rashly turned his head away from Freed.

“I had to do something, you know”, Bickslow muttered after what seemed to Freed like an oddly tense eternity. He sounded nearly defiant. “It's not as if I had many options.”

Freed had the feeling that he didn't agree, but didn't respond.

Bickslow had been right on one thing, though; it had been yesterday. He could lament Bickslow's harsh actions, but he couldn't change them, not even his runes could change the past.

His feet were still burning, but his heart had stopped racing and for the moment, that had to be enough. As far as they had gotten, they still had no time to waste.

He breathed in deeply to fill himself with new determination and stood up. Next to him, Bickslow shifted and turned his head up, too.

“I think we should go”, Freed said. “We've rested enough, and the day is nearing its end.”

“Yeah, guess you're right”, answered Bickslow, but he sounded a little absent.

When he got up, he had his head turned back down to the ground, the upper half of his face hidden behind now dry hair. Freed thought to see him clench his teeth for not even a second before he started to wrap the bandage he had been carrying in his hands around his head once more. When he tugged the loose end of the cloth behind the already tight wrappings and looked up, a smirk was back on his face that looked out of place. “I'm not coming with you”, he said, stating what Freed already knew, but something about his casual voice was off. “I guess I'll try my best in the village over there.”

He nodded over to the next settlement, and Freed nodded his approval. “I understand”, he said.

“Don't let your dad... yeah, whatever. Keep your chin up, rich kid”, Bickslow said. It felt to Freed like a deja vu.

“Goodbye, Bickslow”, he said, offering the other boy his hand, but this time, he didn't take it.

Instead, he turned around roughly and started marching off, a good hundred metres before he broke into a run.

It felt like something was missing.

For a second, Freed had been tempted to simply follow Bickslow because of it, but the long legs of the other boy wouldn't even allow him to come close.

It was better that way, it had been inevitable, he told himself.

There was something about them that was similar, the nature of their magic, like a bit of a shared fate. But they weren't alike, Freed knew it clearer than ever. They weren't part of the same world, didn't believe in the same things or follow the same ideals.

Their brief time together had never been meant to be more than an interlude.

 

\---

 

Minutes passed in silence before Freed started to be on his way back to the mountains. He took the time to quickly estimate his current position and options. He only had himself, his magic and a hopefully comfortable advance on his pursuers on his side, so he couldn't afford to lose any more time than strictly necessary. Additionally, it was best if he wouldn't spend another night sleeping out in the open since he couldn't use a barrier to protect himself.

It was doubtful that he would reach Crocus before nightfall, though, even if he ran a bit of the way. If he had to make an educated guess, he and Bickslow had been walking at a moderate pace for about three hours from Crocus to the little village the day before, and with all the detours they had taken after the ambush, Freed wasn't sure if three hours would be enough to reach Crocus once more.

He would take the route straight towards the grove, keep at its rim and move directly towards the capital. He inevitably would reach the river, and then he would simply follow it up towards the mountains. If everything went well, he could still reach the mountains before midnight, and his father's castle before breakfast the next day.

But once he had gotten under way, he realised quite painfully that his feet were still burning, and it took a good bit of his willpower to keep running and ignore the feeling. A little voice in the back of his head also questioned whether his decision to go at all had been right, but he did his best to dismiss that voice.

He had to believe it was right, had to believe in himself. He would ask for his fathers help, appeal to his wisdom to solve the confusion in his mind, and until then, nothing he could do would change anything, especially not the past.

He wanted to be a good person, someone who took his responsibility for his actions and lived according to rules, laws, moral. And more than everything else, he wouldn't allow that to change. These thoughts fuelled his determination, made it easier to go on and ignore the blisters forming on his feet.

He reached the grove soon after, when the sky was already turning red. There were no farmers around, no pastures, either. Just harvested fields on his one side, and the grove on his other; golden leaves in the setting sun. It was indeed rather idyllic.

But it was also very, very silent. A mild breeze rustled through the trees from time to time, but for a while, his footsteps on the ground were the only noises he could hear. But the darker the sky turned the more Freed grew aware of other sounds; a chirping in the underbrush, the song of birds not native to the mountain area he had grown up in, loud and shrill and unknown to him. And other noises were missing; the soothing trickling of little water streams running down the mountains, the occasional splash from a bigger fish in the lake, the blowing of the wind around the towers... Sounds that used to comfort him in the nights spend alone in his room.

But the grove was nothing compared to Fiore's capital Crocus, that came back into sight when night had just fallen. The sounds here were even stranger; a loud murmuring of too many people to count, dogs barking and cats shrieking and too many things he couldn't even place, hadn't even heard before. It was bright, too; uncountable lights against the night sky, as if inside of the city, the day had never ended. It was like one big living and breathing being in front of him, or like an anthill, perhaps. Freed could only marvel why he hadn't noticed this either night before. Had he been too pre-occupied talking to Bickslow, or why, today of all days, he seemed so sensitive, so susceptible to the sounds and pictures surrounding him, things that he could identify with his mind from the knowledge he had gained, but that were so strange, so new, nevertheless.

He spent one of his small breaks sitting on a rock near the river, staring at the beautiful lights of Crocus on the other side. How many people lived there? What were they doing now? Were they coming home from work, would they have dinner with their families now, go to bed, prepare for the new day? Were they meeting relatives, friends, acquaintances, or were they doing homework and chores that they hadn't managed to complete before, like he would back at home?

And then, there it was, tall and golden, illuminated by uncountable lights: Mercurius, the palast of the King. To see it from far away, a single tower over the mountain ridge, and now in full so close to him were two pair of shoes entirely, and it was both, breathtaking, and saddening.

Freed had always been on his own, unconnected to his brothers due to their large difference in age, and his father was rather... distanced. He had only ever had Constance. He knew the overwhelming solitude of hours spend without company, of nights looking from his window into the vast night sky and down the mountains, but never feeling the wish to leave the castle in the lake.

But tonight, for the first time in his life, Freed felt truly alone, and no matter how long he thought about it, he didn't understand why.

 

\---

 

Freed reached the edge mountains at the pitch of night, the tree under which he had slept only two nights ago. It felt like a lifetime, and at the same time, it appeared like only a second ago.

His legs were heavy and he was more than simply tired, but his determination was still strong enough to keep going. If he would have to break down, he would break down in his own room and not one step earlier.

He was so close now, his journey would reach his final destination, though not its conclusion. There was still so much for him to do, so much to learn.

Just up the mountains, through the little village where the fishermen lived, up the path that led to Lake Saffron.

Walking forward became like a tunnel, only his goal ahead like a light he tried to reach, everything else was nothingness. He had lost track of the time when he finally reached the bridge crossing the lake towards his father's castle, but it was still night. His heart was pounding with more than simple exhaustion; there was anticipation, a little fear, nervousness. But he wouldn't turn back now, he had come too far.

But before he knew what happened, the path forward was blocked by the guards in front of the bridge, spears crossed, looking down at Freed with inscrutable expressions behind their helmet visors.

“Forgive us, Master Freed”, said one of them, while the other moved very quickly and grabbed Freed's arm. “These are the Lord's orders.”

A second later his hands were cuffed, and he was lead across the bridge with one guard on either side, a common criminal being brought towards his trial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I probably outed myself as a complete troll with this one. First, I get Freed away from home, then I introduce Bickslow, then I take Bickslow away just to joke about it when he's coming back - and now, I take Bickslow out of the equation again and Freed returns to the castle just to be taken into custody? If I were my reader, I'd be understandably confused.  
> But rest assured - I have a plan :)  
> However - sorry if I'm appearing like I string you along with the sole purpose of trolling you - this is not the case here.


	13. Trial

Nothing about what happened next really surprised Freed. The guards brought him to the dungeon in silence, and while other guards were watching, no one was saying a word. They let him into a cell, talked shortly to the prison guards, only the necessities. Freed's father didn't hire soldiers who talked too much.

The only thing that made any sense to do right now was waiting.

Freed sat down on the creaking bed, still and stiff to not break the silence more than the bed already did on its own. He concentrated on his feet, on the way his blood pulsed through his soles, making it feel as if his feet had a heartbeat on their own. He couldn't do much else.

It was all clear to him. The guards would report to his father that Freed had been found. The Lord would get up early, prepare himself for the day ahead and then he would put Freed on trial for manslaughter. The Justines had always been the chief justices of the land around the mountains.

If he thought too hard about it now, Freed would probably begin to consider that coming here with nothing else than the conviction that he never wanted any of this to happen had been a bad idea. He had not more, not less than his own word.

But his father knew him well, he was his father, after all. Freed's word would surely carry weight. He had never done anything wrong in his life before, and this had to mean something.

He didn't know how long it took until something began to stir in front of the cells. Freed could hear faint footsteps on the stairs leading down to the dungeons, somewhat hurried and followed by heavier ones.

“He isn't allowed to see anyone, Constance”, said the deep voice of one of the soldiers, slightly muffled by the walls.

Freed found himself turning his head towards the bars of his cell for the first time since he had come here. Constance?

“He's just a boy, of course he needs to see me!”, protested a female voice. “Harron said he looks awful, dirty and tired and...!” The woman huffed in protest. “He's probably not eaten in days!”

“Let her through”, another voice intervened from even further up the stairs, and Freed's eyes grew wide in shock. If _he_ was here, things were looking worse than he had thought. “It's going to be alright, I'm taking the responsibility.”

“Yes, Master Coen”, said the guard, and as soon as he had finished, light steps hurried down the stairs.

“Freed!”, Constance practically screeched once she reached the bars to his cell and flung a basket onto the ground. “Thank the Gods you're in one piece!”

He tried his best to return her smile, but he found that worry and concern and a certain nervousness he couldn't quite suppress turned it sad, just like hers. If his father had ordered his middle brother Coen to come home, the whole affair suddenly seemed much bigger.

A little more than distracted by his thoughts, he went over to the bars. Contance was already grabbing them firmly, as if trying to pull them out by force.

“You had us all worried, dear”, she said, visibly upset.

Freed wondered silently who 'us all' entailed. “I am sorry”, he replied feebly. “I didn't mean too---”

“Shush.” Constance shook her head softly, messy strands of grey hair moving back and forth. Only now did Freed realise that she was still in her nightgown, only wore a cloak against the cold. “I don't need explanations. I'm just glad you're back.”

“Thank you.”

For a while, Freed simply enjoyed the presence of his nursemaid, carefully put a hand on the bars close to hers. It was as if he would be a little boy again, as if there would be no bars in between them, and she would simply sooth him after a nightmare; a very nostalgic feeling that appeared like a distant memory.

“You must be hungry, dear”, Constance said after a while, taking her hands away from the bars and Freed and turned her attention to the discarded basket on the floor. “I brought you something from the kitchens...”

“Stop it, Constance. That goes too far”, intervened the prison guard. Constance looked up from the basket, eyes sparkling. “Master Coen allowed you to see him, nothing was said about food or anything else. He will get his ration later.”

“Oh no, he won't”, thundered Constance, eyes narrowing on the guard and pointing a finger at him like a mother scolding a misbehaving child. The guard cringed a little. “He's been out there for days, and he needs a balanced diet, he's still growing! I'm not going to allow you to feed him the kitchen scraps the other prisoners get!”

The guard, a little red below his helmet's visor, pointedly turned his head away and coughed a little. Constance, appearing pleased with herself, began to rummage around in her basket again and pulled out a bottle.

“Here, my dear”, she said kindly as she handed Freed first the bottle, and then several other items wrapped in cloth. “I didn't have time to cook something, I'm sorry. These are the leftovers from yesterday's dinner; chicken and bread and a bit of cheese. I also found these apples...”, she handed him three after he had put the other food on the ground, “... and of course, this. Sorry that it's not fresh, I made it two days ago ...”

“No kitchen scraps, huh?”, muttered the guard.

“Did you say something, _dear_?”, replied Constance sharply.

The guard coughed once more. “Not a single word, ma'am.”

Freed, meanwhile, stared at the last item his nursemaid had handed him. It was soft and it smelled very familiar; sweet and very, very familiar...

“You know, we wanted to celebrate your victory over the marshal. I kept them. Maybe you need a little motivation now ”, Constance said, while Freed slowly unwrapped the tartlets she had made for him.

The cherry tartlets. They reminded him of the easy days; Constance would make them for him only on holidays and for his birthday, and they were easily the best things about these days. They had been meant to celebrate a milestone in his education, his successes. In short, they were meant to celebrate everything that this day wouldn't bring.

With a sad smile on his face, he wrapped up the cherry tartlets and gave them back to Constance, who looked at him in bewilderment.

“I am sorry, Constance. I can't eat them today, it... it wouldn't feel right.”

She looked at him as if she wanted to read his thoughts, careful, a little worried. But finally, she smiled softly. “Of course. I'm keeping them for you until this is over with, alright?”

He nodded in approval, thankful to her for understanding his motifs so well. There was worry and anxiety in her eyes, too, and Freed hated to see it, knowing that he had caused it.

“I brought you fresh clothes, too”, Constance said loudly against both of their thoughts drifting off and handed him a simple shirt and a pair of trousers through the bars. The guard didn't dare to say anything and still pointedly stared into the other direction. “I fear he's not going to allow me to take you to the bathrooms.”

“No way in hell, not even for you”, the guard muttered.

“Thank you for everything, Constance”, Freed said, and when his nursemaid smiled kindly at him, he felt a little at home, no matter if he was still in the dungeons and no matter what lay in front of him.

 

\---

 

After Constance had left, Freed had eaten all of what she had brought him. He noticed again that nothing had ever tasted as fine as bread on an empty stomach, and when he had put on the new clothes, he felt halfway like a human being again. He briefly wondered how Bickslow had stood it to run around in rags that he had clearly outgrown and that not even deserved to be called clothes for as long as he probably had, but right now, he had other things to worry about than the street kid.

It didn't take very long for a number of guards in full dress uniform to come down to the dungeons and take Freed with them, hands cuffed behind his back.

Every breath became a conscious choice to not lose his cool on the way up the stairs, through corridors and past staring castle staff, and every step seemed to become slower and slower.

When they finally reached the throne room, it was fully day. The sun flooded the large room through the ceiling-high windows, so bright that Freed needed to close his eyes. He had been accustomed to the darkness of the night and the few artificial light sources of the dungeon, and the sudden brightness was blinding and threatened to cause him another migraine. Even when he felt ready to open his normal eye again, he kept the Eye of Darkness closed behind his hair.

In the centre of the room on a long, meticulously cared for blue carpet with silver trimmings stood one single, simple chair like it was custom if the throne room became the setting for a trial. Freed was led to that chair, had to sit down, hands still cuffed behind his back and the two guards to his left and his right. There were many more guards in their dress uniforms, lined up along the windows from the main door on the one end of the room to the throne on the dais on the other side.

Freed's father sat on that throne, his greying hair combed into a short ponytail, eyes hidden being his glasses that reflected too much of the surrounding light. His lips were pressed shut into a firm line, and he seemed calm; concentrated and focussed, but also not like Freed had imagined him to look.

Freed would have expected him to be angry, to rage, but of course, this was a court room now, and Lord Justine would serve as the judge. Of course he needed to be focussed, feelings always came second in the court room.

After Freed had sat down, his father raised a hand, and a door in the back of the room opened to reveal Hal Justine, his glasses pushed up on his nose and wearing his most formal clothes. His face was just as hard to read as his father's, focussed and calm and cold. As the next in line to the Lord's title, he would act as steward and lead the trial. He stepped forward, stopped on the dais his father was seated upon, just one step lower than the throne.

Coen Justine followed his brother in proper distance, and Freed once more realised the severity of his situation. Coen was a Rune Knight, and his father paid attention to keep their family's relation to his second son close enough to have influence and standing amongst the knights, but never too close, to avoid the relationship to be seen as corrupted. If he had been summoned, and Freed was sure he had been since Coen never visited just so, it couldn't be a good sign. However, Coen's face was, until now, also the only one which showed any signs of emotions. He did his best to keep his face straight and unmoving, to keep a perfect non-committal arch of his eyebrows, a perfect thin and neutral line between his lips. But his eyes looked different from Hal's; they showed that behind his calm demeanour, Coen was more than upset. Maybe it helped that Coen didn't wear any glasses to hide behind. He took his place slightly behind his father's dais on the back wall of the room, and scrutinised Freed with careful but intense looks. Freed felt his heart sinking into his stomach and breathed in carefully to fight the feeling.

He had done nothing wrong on purpose. He wanted to be a good, honourable man and make up for what his mistake had cost, and he would stand up to face his errors. It became like a mantra to repeat these words in his mind.

He repeated them once more as Hal coughed and began to read from a scroll he had brought. “This court has been convened to decide in the case of Freed Justine.” Freed's heart started beating faster, so heavily he feared his chest would explode. To hear these words was something else than expecting them. “The defendant is accused of deliberate and violent actions against his tutor, Sir Lorentz Rauckal, during a training session on the late afternoon of September 2, X778.” Freed told himself with moderate success that this was exactly what he had expected.

“As the wronged party, Sir Rauckal has agreed to join this trial as a side plaintiff.”

The door in the back of the room opened once more, and while Freed might not have wanted to believe his ears, he had to believe his eye. His tutor marched into the room, head held high staring down the guards, one arm in a sling and his head bandaged, but otherwise unharmed. He stopped next to Coen on the back wall.

Freed wasn't sure what he felt in that moment. His tutor was alive – _alive!_ \- and he should be happy, he knew he should be; but all he could register in between all the convoluted feelings and pictures was pure shock and relief balled up so tightly that all he was still able to do was to stare at his tutor with both eyes wide open and his jaw dropping nearly onto his knees. 

His tutor stared at Freed, too; cold satisfaction in his calculating eyes, he looked a little like his own cat.

It was Hal's voice that stopped the unnoticed staring between tutor and student. “As a result of repeated assaults by the accused, Sir Rauckal was pushed out of the window in this castle's northern tower. If not for a timely cushion spell, Sir Rauckal is likely to have lost his life in the impact that would have resulted from the fall. The defendant Freed Justine is therefore charged with attempted murder of the victim and side plaintiff, who himself presses additional charges against the defendant for the unauthorised use of the spell 'Darkness'.”

After Hal had ended and rolled up the scroll once more, Freed felt left in a state of so utter confusion that shock and relief found no space in his heart any more. “The accused may defend himself now.”

Attempted murder? Unauthorised use of a spell he didn't even know? How could the use of a spell be authorised, anyway? Was that why Coen had been summoned, as a Rune Knight and not as his brother? Attempted murder. How was his tutor even alive? _A cushion spell_ , said a voice in Freed's head, but he hardly registered it. His thoughts raced into every possible direction, ran in circles and met each other at the most unpleasant of points and conclusions.

Something so entirely different from what he had expected had happened, something he hadn't calculated yet something that shouldn't change his situation, or should it? If his tutor was alive, why was he still accused of _attempted murder_?

“Freed”, said a voice, cutting through the silence of the room and through Freed's confusion and thoughts. He had kept quiet for too long, everyone was staring at him, and in his shock, he hadn't even noticed. The one who had spoken to him right now had been Coen.

Freed took one deep breath after the other, trying to calm himself down and keep his head focussed and his thoughts on track. He had to tell everything he knew, only that way everything would clear up.

In the end, the new situation could only change so much for him; he still was armed with nothing more than the truth, but the truth should always suffice.

“Fath---.”, he started, but doubled back remembering where he was. He still couldn't see his father's eyes behind the glasses. “Your Lordship, allow me to say that I am truly sorry for everything that has happened since the afternoon of September 2. I never intended to cause neither harm nor trouble, not to my esteemed tutor and least of all, to my family.”

Behind the throne, Sir Rauckal snorted audibly, disdain gleaming in his eyes like daggers he wanted to throw at Freed. When Coen discretely nudged him into the side, he fell silent again.

It wasn't that Freed wanted to say what he knew he had to say, but beating around the bush didn't seem like a strategy likely to succeed, and so he took one last deep breath before he said: “However, I cannot and will not deny that I indeed...”

His father shifted nearly unnoticeably, the sunlight reflecting off his glasses and blinding Freed for a second. The words he needed to say, they were stuck in his throat. “I indeed... I...” He didn't improve his situation by hiding it, he knew. He needed to speak the truth, and there was no way to formulate it nicer. “I indeed pushed Sir Rauckal out of the window, an action I deeply regret.”

A murmuring went through the guards that Hal silenced with a gesture. Freed looked up to his father, but he didn't move, not a single bit. Coen's eyes scrutinised him with another intense gaze and his tutor smirked smugly at nobody but himself.

“This should tell you everything you need to know, Your Lordship”, he said. “Just go ahead and end this process---”

“This is not your call to make, Sir Rauckal”, intervened Hal firmly, and Freed's tutor grudgingly fell silent once more. “Freed Justine still has the right to speak.”

An odd wave of thankfulness washed over Freed. He shivered despite the warmth, but it was good to know that basic rules were still being obeyed.

“It may sound empty and hollow considering my position, but I did not intend to harm Sir Rauckal. The situation got out of my hand, and I did not do this on purpose. I... I lost control over my actions after my last spell, and when I came back to my senses, Sir Rauckal had already... fallen.” Freed felt a bit better once the words were spoken out loud, but at the same time, he was oddly aware of how unbelievable it must have sounded to everyone else. “I cannot remember much more than that.”

His tutor certainly saw it similar and snorted once more. “Of _course_ the situation got _out of your hand,_ boy. Let me jog your memory: you cast 'Darkness' on yourself, a spell unauthorised by me, and used the resulting power it gave you to _get rid of me_ , as the saying goes!”

“I don't know about this spell!”, Freed gave back, genuinely confused. Of all the issues he was presented with, this was the one he understood the least. “I cast 'Wings', as you asked of me.”

Sir Rauckal let out a low growl, more fitting to an angry dog than to a man of his standing. “Don't play dumb, boy. I know what I saw and I saw the runes for 'Darkness' right before you transformed.”

Freed's shivering grew so intense that he could hear the metal chains of his cuffs clanking from the irregular movements. Transformed...? Yellow eyes, cold and full of hatred, came back to his mind; darkness and claws, his torn shirt...

“I don't... I didn't...”

“Oh yes, you did”, snarled his tutor. “'Darkness' summons a spirit of the underworld, in other words a demon, and transforms its caster into its likeness. But you already know that, don't you, boy? You did that purely out of spite, because the lectures weren't to your satisfaction!”

Freed hardly heard his tutor's insults. His mind had stopped working before and gone into a state of utter blankness, before his thoughts had started racing once more. Memories, pictures were flashing in front of him, a world so dark that even the light was swallowed, hatred and pride and power pulsing through his veins and then the fear, the disbelief that it had truly been him who had done these terrible things. What happened to the angel who fell from the heavens?

_He became the first demon._

“Demon... no...”, he all but whimpered, eyes cast onto the ground, the blue carpet below his feet. It didn't matter that he had suspected, feared something like this. He had wanted to be wrong about this. He had _needed_ to be wrong about this. To know it for sure was different. It was like his worst nightmare had come true. A wave of pain pulsed through his eye as if to remind him that he couldn't escape himself... he had summoned a demon? Became a demon, even? His eye, his cursed eye, really had the power to do that? With just one spell, a spell he didn't even know he had cast, he should have the power to open the gates to the underworld?

Slowly, though, some of his thoughts began to race on the right tracks again. If he took his tutor's words for the truth, if he – just for a moment – accepted that he had cast another spell than the one he had been supposed to and _that_ was what had triggered his transformation, then... _not_ casting that particular spell would also _not_ summon any demon, or transform him in any way?

His eye could only make reality what he explicitly wrote, runes he explicitly formulated... so, however he had cast that 'Darkness' spell – if he simply never used these runes again, he would be safe. It would be his decision if he wanted to, his alone, and not a demon's or any influence of his eyes. In that way, he would still have control over his life, over who he would become. Over whether or not his soul stayed white and good.

_I want to be a good, honourable man and make up for my mistakes._ Gathering new resolve and collecting himself with a few steadying breaths, Freed looked back up to find the whole room staring at him. Hal looked expectant behind his glasses.

“Your Lordship”, Freed started, his voice remarkably loud and clear. “Please, you must believe me. I don't know about this spell, and it wasn't my intention to cast it to... transform... into a demon. It could only have happened by accident, and I truly had no control of what I was doing after I... transformed.”

Lord Justine shifted a tiny bit on his throne, and for a second, no light reflected off his glasses. Freed felt a sting in his heart when he realised that behind his cool and collected mask, his father looked severely disappointed. A heart beat later, though, the reflection was back and no one could see how the chief justice really felt.

“Don't try to tell me you didn't cast 'Darkness' on purpose, boy!”, Sir Rauckal exclaimed. “The amounts of magical energy and the focus necessary for its use are hardly achievable for someone of _your calibre_ without further training!” 

Freed felt his blood shooting up into his face when he heard the air of superiority that accompanied the pure disdain in his tutor's voice. Coen had noticed it, too, and shot the man on his side a warning glance.

Both Freed's and his brother's eyes were drawn somewhere else, though, as Hal cleared his throat. “If I may add something to this matter. Freed was indeed dabbling in demonic lore”, he said.

Freed's heart, which had just started functioning normally again, stopped beating entirely. There was no hint of emotion on Hal's face, not even disdain, just expressionless neutrality. “He was using his lunch breaks to read 'The Song of Creation', and what is worse, he hid it from me when I inquired.”

If he would have been able to feel anything in this moment, a streak of rebelliousness might have overcome Freed and he would very much have liked to answer: _You can't be serious._ Instead, he simply gaped at Hal, unable to process that even his tiniest white lie would apparently come back to haunt him. He should have known it would.

“Hal, please”, intervened Coen, speaking for the first time since Freed had started explaining his story. “'The Song of Creation' is hardly _demonic lore_. It's simple fiction, and a rather well-known novel, too. You can't try to judge Freed because of what he reads in his free time.” 

It was so unusual and unexpected for Coen to take Freed's party that he gaped at his middle brother now, instead.

“Why should he lie to me about it, then”, Hal replied coldly.

In return, Coen shook his head exasperatedly. “Why indeed”, he muttered. Slowly, the man on the back wall seemed less like the brother Freed thought to have known. Even on the few occasions in which Coen hadn't been of the same opinion as Hal in the past, he had never dared to answer with obvious sarcasm in his voice. It wasn't befitting the second-born, but it did bring Freed back to his senses.

“I was afraid you could be disappointed that I wasn't studying”, he said quietly, looking over to Hal. It sounded a bit childish to him even from his own lips.

Hal let out an exasperated sigh. “Freed, in your predicament  _every single second_ of the day should be used studying! It is only for your own good if you master your eye as quickly as possible”, he replied, for the first time in months sounding as if he truly believed it would only benefit Freed for his own sake, and not simply their family.

The sudden outburst of emotion of the trial's steward didn't go unnoticed, and from behind Hal's back, Lord Justine shortly harrumphed and immediately, every sign of agitation left Hal's face. “Of course, Your Lordship. The defendant's free time activities are indeed not subject of this trial. Freed Justine, if I may conclude your arguments”, he pushed his glasses a bit further up his nose and turned his head down just a bit. The sun reflected off his glasses now in the same way as it did from his father's, making it impossible to judge what Hal was thinking behind the surface. “You say you didn't know of the spell the plaintiff saw you casting, but after inadvertently casting it on yourself you then attacked the plaintiff while not being the master of your own actions. You must agree that this sounds... far-fetched.”

“I do”, Freed said. “But it's everything I know. This is what happened.”

Sir Rauckal scoffed in return and stepped forward, only stopping when two guards blocked his way before he could reach Hal. “This is nothing short of ridiculous! Even _you_ can't think that these pathetic excuses could stand against _my_ word!”, he said, shaking a fist into Hal's direction, who only discretely took a sideways step and nodded towards the guards, who then accompanied Sir Rauckal back to his place next to Coen, who now openly glared at the tutor like he was the true defendant of this trial.

Maybe Coen was sympathetic to his cause. And maybe, behind his cool exterior, Hal felt the same. “But it's everything I have”, Freed said, feeling encouraged. “I have to trust that this court will come to the right decision after I presented the truth to my best knowledge. I just did that.”

Coen allowed himself to smile a very tiny smile at his brother, and Hal exhaled softly enough to just barely not appear relieved.

Then, after a short pause, Coen raised his voice. “I do have one question, though, if I may”, he said.

Without looking towards neither their father, nor his brother, Hal nodded his approval. Following this, Coen stepped forward, and came to a halt flush with Hal, but next to the dais instead of on its steps. “If you thought of yourself as innocent, and from your portrayal of the events I assume you did, why did you run away and only returned two days later?”

Even if it seemed so, Freed was calm enough again to realise that Coen's intention wasn't to trick him. It was an honest question. “I... I was afraid”, Freed replied earnestly. “Nobody knows anything about my eye, and even if Sir Rauckal is an expert on eye magic, he said himself that this eye is especially rare. It doesn't even have a real name.” In the back of the court room, Sir Rauckal glared daggers at Freed once more. Freed, however, brought himself to go on and gathered all his courage to speak directly to his father. “Whatever happened to me and whatever spell I cast, I had just witnessed how I had pushed my tutor out of the window with my own hands without being able to do anything to prevent it from happening. I was so afraid... so frightened of myself and my eye and how... how you would react, father. Hal. I apologise. I didn't think. I couldn't. I just ran.”

Having spoken these words, Freed realised that for the first time, he had today admitted directly to his father's and brothers' faces that he was afraid of their disappointment, and that even twice. It felt very relieving, even more so as Freed caught Coen's eyes, who smiled at him a little wider than before, as if he had wanted exactly that.

“It took me a while to realise that running away would not improve or change anything, but when I did, I came back as fast as I could.”

“Freed indeed came back on his own account, Your Lordship”, said Hal, head still turned so that no one could look behind his glasses. “The guards said he returned shortly before dawn, and that you were informed immediately afterwards. He also made no attempts to escape his subsequent imprisonment.”

When nobody in the room raised his voice to add anything, apart from Sir Rauckal who seemed to seethe with suppressed anger, Hal searched for his father's eyes and received a short nod.

“If nobody has anything to add to the issue at hand, His Honour, Lord Louie Justine, will now pass the sentence on the defendant.”

Then, Hal turned around and stepped down from the dais, stopping next to Coen who had moved back to the back wall. When Lord Justine rose from this throne, Freed felt his heart beating nearly everywhere in his body except for in his eye, which was pulsing with a different rhythm.

“In the matter at hand, the word of the victim Sir Rauckal stands against the word of the defendant, Freed Justine. There is no objective evidence supporting the claims of either side apart from the personal portrayals of the situation by the involved parties. Therefore, I have to declare the defendant innocent of the charge of attempted murder.”

“This is outrageous!”, cried Sir Rauckal, two guards stepped closer to prevent him from leaving his position.

Freed only barely heard him, a weight nearly the size of a mountain was taken off his mind.

“The additional charges pressed by the side plaintiff cannot be decided by this court and are therefore dropped. The court is adjourned.”

A murmuring broke out between the guards, and Freed's cuffs were opened immediately. Coen and Hal started moving and talked amongst themselves, two guards accompanied an outraged and angry Sir Rauckal out of the room.

Freed, however, stayed put on his chair, unable to grasp the situation fully. He let it sink in that he had been found innocent, that there wouldn't be legal consequences, that his tutor, as much as he disliked him, was still alive and nearly unharmed... There was truly hope, light at the end of the darkness and the confusion, and he had just taken a very big step into this direction.

Once the guards had accompanied Sir Rauckal outside and a good number of the other soldiers had left the court room for their normal positions, Freed's father, who still stood stiff and still on the dais, raised his voice once more.

“Freed, I want to make one thing very clear”, he said and Freed felt another shiver moving through his body. The way he spoke boded ill, it was still the tone of the chief justice of his land, not the tone of his father. “I am more than disappointed with you. Not only have you misused the power you have been born with to harm an innocent man, but you have also tried to avoid the consequences, whatever motifs you might have had.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees. Hal and Coen had stopped talking, looked at their father with the same unmasked anticipation that Freed felt, too.

“But father...”, Freed said, but a single gesture from his father shut him up.

“It is just as I said. There was no objective evidence, and so I had to declare you innocent. That does not imply that there will be no consequences for you. For the time being, you are placed under house arrest. The guards will accompany you to your room. We will speak later.”

He didn't wait for a reaction from anyone, his glasses only flashed a last time before he turned around and marched out of the room.

The two guards next to Freed's chair began to move. “Come on, Master Freed”, said one of them. “You heard the Lord.”

Without further ado and under the eyes of his two brothers, the guards brought Freed out of the room, down the corridors and up the stairs to his room in one of the towers. They lead him inside, closed the door behind him and locked it.

It was all as he had left it two days ago, all untouched and still, it felt so different. Freed forced himself forward, one step after the other, until he reached his bed and simply broke down on it.

He wasn't sure if he could stand this up and down for much longer, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered why he felt hurt at all.

It wasn't as if he had expected everything to end after being found innocent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me say one thing: Resemblances to events of a certain last arc of Fairy Tail are coincidence. I am confident in the way this chapter played out, even though I know how it might look in the light of the weak points of the Alvarez arc.


	14. Trust...

Freed woke up to the sound of loud voices in front of his room's door. When he opened his eyes, his reflexes made him close them again immediately. The room was bright, the early afternoon sun shone through the window, and his head was spinning. For a moment of blissful ignorance, he didn't remember the events that had lead to his current position. But when he sat up in bed, slowly working on opening his eyes, and found himself dressed in rather simple clothes and his white bedsheets grimed from his dirty hands and face and his hair in disarray, things came back to him. His tutor. The darkness. Running away, Bickslow. Coming back. Constance, Hal, Coen, his father. His process. His father. House arrest.

Sighing deeply, he set up fully on the edge of his bed, massaging his forehead and contemplating if he should think about his current situation and find out what to do, if he could do anything about it, that was. He didn't get very far, though, as the door of his room was opened and his attention was drawn to his visitor.

Much to his surprise, Freed found Coen in the door frame, a mild, thoughtful smile on his lips and a book tucked under his arm.

“Ah, you're awake”, he said, while the guards closed and locked the door again. He came nearer, placed the book on Freed's desk, turned around a chair and sat down. All the while Freed couldn't do much else than stare at his brother in slight apprehension. Neither Hal nor Coen ever came to visit just so. “I figured you needed a rest after the last days, otherwise I would have come to see you sooner. How are you feeling?”

“I'm... feeling quite well, thank you”, Freed gave back politely, doing his best to suppress the suspicion creeping onto his features.

Coen chuckled and shook his head. “I'm not here to spy on you for father, if that's what you're thinking right now.”

Freed could feel his ears getting warmer. “I didn't claim that you were.”

“I wouldn't take offence. Hal _always_ believed that when I came to see him”, replied Coen lightly, disarming Freed's apprehension fully.

Coen had more or less stood on his side during the trial, was sympathetic to his situation. Freed had no reason to be on his guard, as unfamiliar as the situation was to him. “I feel... slightly dizzy”, he admitted. “And in dire need of a bath.”

“That's better”, Coen said lowly. “We're always so terribly formal around each other.”

Freed wasn't certain if he wanted to believe his ears as he heard the traces of regret in Coen's voice. “Brother, how can I be of... I mean, how can I help you?”

Coen replied with another small chuckle. “Wrong question, little brother”, he said, turned around and took the book he had brought from the desk. “The right question would be: How can _I_ help _you_?”

Freed eyed the book in his brother's hands, recognising it as one of the compendia on ancient languages and alphabets they owned. This was the book that dealt with the characters used for their Rune Magic; the very same Freed used for his eye magic, as well. “Books are not meant to be taken from our library.”

“Well, since you aren't able leave this room, but we need the book, I found myself in a little dilemma there”, said Coen, a self-conscious smirk on his lips. “I decided for being practical; two heads are better than one, they say. We need to find out what exactly went wrong two days ago.”

“So you really believe me?”, Freed said excitedly, only barely keeping himself from blurting it out, the thought of the book being taken from the library all but forgotten. He looked up to his brother and found Coen nodding. Seeing proof that one of his brothers trusted him, his word, was utterly relieving.

“I believe a mistake happened, somehow. I want to help you find out which one exactly, and why.”

New resolution dispersed Freed's dizziness and he nodded in agreement. Coen took it as permission to take the book with him and sit down next to Freed on the bed.

“We need to start at the beginning”, Coen said.

“Then I think I should start explaining a little about my magic, or have father and Hal already informed you about everything we found out while you have been in Crocus?”

“Only the bare necessities. Tell me more.”

Recapitulating the events from the last months, Freed considered where to start best. “I think you are familiar the basic functioning of my eye, at least as far as all of us know about it. It makes the meaning of whatever I write and infuse with magic channelled over my eye reality.”

Freed looked over to Coen, who had the book still closed in his lap and was holding his little brother's gaze. Thoughts were already forming and beginning to interact in his mind, Freed could see it from the way he squinted the tiniest bit.

“Both language, alphabet and possible encodings do not play a role, as long as the meaning of my words is precise”, Freed went on. “For simplicity, I decided to use the same characters for my eye magic as for my Rune Magic, though to distinguish both, I am using a different language. Ancient Konvani, to be precise.”

Coen tapped his chin, and nodded. “As opposed to Ptelomoniac; an agglutinative opposed to an inflected language. I see.”

“Yes. Sir Rauckal suggested it when I started my training under him.”

Coen's eyes narrowed even more and he began tapping his chin in an inaudible rhythm before he said: “I think it might be best if you show me the characters for the spell you should have cast - 'Wings'? - before we continue any further.”

Freed stood up to get a piece of paper and a pen from his desk and wrote down the runes. Once he had the paper in his hands, Coen opened the compendium and started comparing the letters to various charts, leaving Freed to his own thoughts for the moment.

“I've been thinking about what Sir Rauckal said, too. I can't make sense of it. I know the word for 'darkness' in Konvani, and I most definitely did not write it. And even if I accept that I somehow did, I can't see how I should have ended up writing that instead of 'wings'. Mistakes like that don't happen just so.”

Coen didn't answer for a few seconds, instead switched his attention back and forth between the book and the piece of paper. “You know what I think, Freed? Maybe you're limiting your perspective when you rely too much on what Sir Rauckal said.” He looked up from the book to meet Freed's eyes, his own still narrowed a little. “Can we be sure that he told the truth?”

“You think that he might have lied?”, asked Freed, taken aback by the mere concept, and even more because some part of him wouldn't even put it past Sir Rauckal.

Coen, however, exhaled very carefully, and very slowly. “It's not my position to judge if he was lying or merely telling his version of the truth”, he said thoughtfully. “Even _he_ admits that his knowledge about your eye is incomplete.”

Freed pondered on his brother's words for a few seconds before he slowly nodded. “I see. And he most likely will not help us if we ask him for a detailed description of the events again.”

“No, he will not. He already left the castle, by the way.”

Freed merely nodded, having already anticipated this. “Then we have only one source of information: me.”

“Yes”, Coen said plainly. Freed felt a wave of coldness moving from his neck down his spine, he didn't really want to speak about everything again. He had told it to Bickslow already, then to the court; had thought about it so often that his thoughts began to run in circles whenever the topic was mentioned. He wasn't certain if he could explain everything a second time this day.

As if reading his thoughts, Coen carefully put a hand on his brother's shoulder. Astonished at the sudden contact, Freed looked up. “You don't need to describe everything again. My memory is still very sharp”, Coen said, smiling a little and displaying open understanding in his features. They were so much like their father's, sharp and refined and perfect for scowling; but looked so different right now.

“Thank you”, Freed muttered. “For everything. I appreciate your help.”

Coen chuckled and took his hand away, focussing back on the book. “Then let's put the cart before the horse, shall we?”, he said lightly, and though Freed didn't quite understand the meaning of his words, he took it that he was to concentrate his attention more on the effect that his writing had had on him. He took all his strength to push his emotions and personal fears aside, to lock them in the back of his mind. He needed to look at this objectively, as if it wasn't his issue but simply an academic problem he had to solve for a class.

“I think that Sir Rauckal was right, though, no matter the spell”, he said. “I really did … transform into a demon, or at least something inhuman. My clothes were torn when I came back to my senses and I remember seeing claws and feeling... taller.”

From the corner of his eyes, Coen looked at him carefully. “I had a hunch during the trial, Freed”, he said slowly. “About what Sir Rauckal claimed the spell 'Darkness' does. When you mentioned Konvani... and together with what you just said... Do you recall that the Konvanians did not have a single word for 'demon'?

“Yes, I think I remember hearing about this in History class. They thought demons were merely spirits of darkness, born from the shadows and given shape by their own evil will. They called them...”

Something dawned on Freed, he took the book from Coen more forcefully than he had intended and started browsing the pages for certain characters. “They called them what we would translate as 'winged darkness', because they believed that they came on black wings in the night and caused nightmares to their children.”

There was a pregnant pause in which Freed tried to realise the scope of what he had just said. Coen remained silent as well to allow Freed to process his own thoughts. Finally, the single sound in the room, the rustling of book pages, ceased as well as Freed had found what he had been looking for.

He drew in a long breath, it was as he had assumed. “Two of the characters are very similar”, Freed said silently. “Apart from the characters used for the word 'wing', the letters used to generate the plural in Konvani can easily be misspelled as the letters forming the beginning of the word 'darkness' when one is sufficiently inattentive...”

As he spoke, he found it more and more difficult to look at everything from his more or less objective position as the emotions stored safely in the back of his mind began pushing against their restraints. “It's... I can't believe it! It's a … simple misspelling!”

The first emotion to break free was disappointment, followed by anger. He crumbled up the paper with the characters up in his fist.

“Not only that”, Coen said, keeping his voice low and even. “You also probably used an incomplete version of the spell, with missing characters. No wonder it went out of your control. Your tutor should have seen that.”

Freed, however, wasn't certain he wanted to blame Sir Rauckal for it. “It's my fault, Coen!”, he exclaimed. He couldn't believe it – now that it was quite literally spelled out in front of him that all he had done wrong, all what had caused so much emotional ups and downs for him had been two missing strokes – a misspelling, a _typo_ – he didn't know if it was relieving, frustrating or embarrassing. As long as the concept of him using a different spell had been out of his understanding, it had been something he couldn't grasp. “It's just... a misspelling! Everything that happened can be blamed solely on my inattentiveness. It's...!” He couldn't find the right word, so he simply let out a noise that mirrored his disgust.

Coen sighed, and suddenly looked sad. “Is it really?”, he said, understanding in voice. “Constance told me you won against the marshal two days ago?”

Confused at the sudden change of topics, Freed searched for his brother's eyes once more. “Yes? Why does that---?”

“And that you had a written exam in Rune Magic afterwards?”, Coen interrupted him.

“Yes. Why---?”

This time, Coen lifted a hand to silence Freed and raised his voice. “And that after lunch, you had classes with Sir Rauckal until the late afternoon?”

“As usual, yes” Freed replied, feeling a little calmer and expecting to be interrupted again.

Coen, however, only shook his head. “I also heard that father renewed your schedule so that you now have classes on Saturday, too, as well as after dinner on several days”, he said softly.

“Of course, I'm behind on the overall education plan”, Freed said plainly.

Coen, it seemed, had asked everything he wanted and looked clearly saddened now. Freed involuntarily shuddered as Coen suddenly wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer, but gradually melted into the unexpected and a little awkward hug. He couldn't remember anyone apart from Constance showing this much affection in their household, but it felt strangely natural, strangely as if this was the way it should be. Tension he didn't know he had been keeping left his body, and he stopped expending any effort in keeping his back straight and his shoulders up, instead allowed himself to say out loud what he had never told anyone, not even Constance.

“I'm tired, Coen. I've always been since my eye manifested. The eye causes migraines, and I'm losing concentration every now and then, and two days ago I simply... I know I should be able to handle this. You've been. Hal has been. Father, too. But I... I can't. I'm simply too exhausted.”

“Freed, don't compare yourself to me or Hal”, Coen chastised, softly but still firm. “We have no right to judge how you're holding up with everything, we never had an eye like yours. We don't know what it does to you. And we never asked, either. We just took it for granted that you would shoulder it alongside everything else we expected from you and believed we all knew what was best in your situation.”

There was a small pause in which Freed tried to let the words sink in, tried to grasp that it was _Coen_ , one of his unreachable elder brothers saying them, meaning every single word. It was hard to process, and while he wanted to say something more eloquent or grateful, the only words leaving his mouth were: “You've changed, brother.”

Before he answered, Coen chuckled ruefully. “I know. A year ago, I would have taken for granted that things were going the way they were supposed to be, trusting in our family and our traditions, in centuries of history and that father knows what he's doing.”

“What happened?”

“You could say that the world happened”, Coen answered heavily. He took his arm away from Freed and ruffled his hair before he stood up from the bed and moved over to the window, Freed on his heels. “I've seen so many things in this last year. So many things I haven't even dreamt about, both good and bad. It made me realise how... limited our world here is.”

He gestured out of the window, and Freed followed his movements, his right eye closed against the sun. “We have our little island in a lake surrounded by mountains and believe it's enough, it's all we are supposed to see. But that's not true.” Coen's hand pointed at the tower of Mercurius in the distance. It awoke the memories of Crocus in Freed, of how vast and lively and humbling it had been. He had only seen a fraction of the world outside, and only for a small time. Coen had seen it and lived in it for nearly a year now.

“When father contacted me and told me what you supposedly had done, I couldn't believe it”, Coen started again, drawing Freed's attention back to him. He searched for his brother's eyes, but couldn't find them; Coen stared at the mountains in the distance and avoided looking at Freed altogether. “But then I had to admit that I didn't even know you well enough to judge that. It made me so angry – how could I have lived my life without even knowing my little brother well enough to say with all my conviction that he wasn't a murderer?” Anger and resentment made his voice dark, both directed not at Freed, but at himself. Freed's heart was beating in his throat again, for entirely different reasons than normally. “I should have known you better”, Coen muttered. “Father should have known you better. Hal should have. But we didn't – we only knew what we expected everyone to be, and never dared to look further than our own limited horizon.”

Things fell into place in Freed's mind, things he had wondered about, things he hadn't understood before, like pieces of a puzzle finally revealing a picture.

He was still much shorter than Coen, but he laid his hand on his brother's shoulder nevertheless. Sometimes, it seemed, extending a hand was all that was needed to create something that had never quite existed before.

 

...

 

Coen stayed for a while longer, and after the initial heaviness had dissolved a little, he told Freed a few stories from his time in the Rune Knights. Freed, on his part, told him about his escape from Red Minotaur and about Bickslow, carefully leaving out the detail that the other boy with eye magic was a thief and that they had parted on slightly disgruntled terms. It turned out, Coen hadn't been pleased with their father's decision to send mercenaries, either.

“When I arrived, I told him that Red Minotaur is known to take any job they can, doing anything it takes to succeed, and sometimes things that aren't necessary. Rumour has it they are rather violent.”

“You could say that”, muttered Freed, not really willing to think of the mercenaries for longer than necessary. “I wondered why father picked them.”

“They are known to get the job done, and I fear that father was simply not thinking further than that. For someone so intelligent, he can be … well, you know him. Sometimes, he's wearing blinders. Add to that that he isn't interested in guild business, and there you have it.”

Freed found himself snorting a little, and quickly hid it behind a cough. Coen didn't seem to mind, he smirked.

“Impressive that you and that... Bickslow? escaped them so often. And you weren't even armed!”

“Well, we did have the moment of surprise on our side.”

“And still, you needed to use it correctly. Not bad for two teenagers with no formal training or limited experience. Imagine what you could do with a little more of both, the both of you.”

Freed had no direct answer to his brother's idea, but he did think about it, did imagine for just a short moment what he could be able to do once he had learned to really use his skills. What he could do if he could fight together with someone, but he pushed that thought away for the moment.

A little later, Coen had to leave as their father had summoned him, and Freed was allowed to take a bath before he would also stand before his father and the family council.

While he wasn't dallying per se, Freed took his time in the bathroom, let the water wash away the dirt and sweat from the last days and allowed his thoughts to calm down, too. Talking to Coen had left him considering many more questions he hadn't asked himself before, but he needed an answer to these questions before he could speak to his father.

It were difficult thoughts, partly dark and heavy, carrying weight over nothing short of his future, but when he left the bathroom and got dressed to meet his family, he had reached a conclusion.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favourite chapters while writing, especially the first scene.  
> Also; I'm not an expert in ancient languages, I only read a lot of wikipedia. If any of the geek-speak in this chapter doesn't make sense, let me know!


	15. ...Broken

It was fascinating how feelings could subjectively change the time it took to get somewhere – when, in the morning, the corridors of the castle had seemed to stretch out endlessly; this time, it appeared to Freed as if he had hardly been let out of his room when he had already reached the dining room, accompanied by two soldiers.

The doors, large and made from richly ornamented mahogany, were still closed. Two guards stood at the entrance, tall and silent, their visors obscuring the upper halves of their faces and their lips pressed into firm lines. They were like statues, but it appeared to Freed that he had never even noticed it before. They were always there; or other soldiers with the same uniform, the same unmoving faces.

He had a look into one of the large windows next to the door, adjusted his tie, brushed off little bits of dust from his frock-coat and made sure his hair was tucked neatly behind his ears.

One of his eyes, the right one, had a black eyeball and a violet iris. It was pulsing in his skull in its own rhythm, like foreign matter; but it was his. His rare gift, his special magic. His duty, his responsibility.

After a last deep breath, he turned away from the window, faced the door and nodded. Wherever the guards had looked behind their visors, they had seen his gesture and immediately opened the door, each one wing.

On the far end of the long table sat his father, staring at the door from an otherwise unmoving face. To his right and left, respectively, sat Hal and Coen, heads turned towards the door. The table wasn't prepared, it was not yet dinnertime, there was only a decanter half-filled with red wine and three glasses. A fourth glass had been put on the place next to Coen, a second decanter with water next to it.

The doors were closed again as soon as Freed had set a step into the room. He took his seat next to Coen, Hal's eyes following him. They were widened behind his glasses as he stared at his brother; just the tiniest bit, barely even noticeable.

“Freed”, said his father's rumbling voice. All three brothers turned their attention to the family's head. “I hope you have used the last hours to deliberate the consequences of your transgressions.”

“Yes, father.”

“I inform you that Sir Lorentz Rauckal has quit his service to our family and has already left the castle. He has also threatened our family, and me in person, that the injustice that has been bestowed on him while employed by the Justines will not be without consequences. In the meantime, your Art tutor, Lady Roquefort, and your History tutor, Sir Banon, have announced that they will quit their respective services as well if your eye and subsequently, your magic, should proof to be unmanageable. Both fear for their life. Lord Balsamico, who was beside himself with shock that I tolerate such violent behaviour from one of my _sons_ , has immediately left the castle after the incident and is not open any longer for any form of negotiations. It will take both time and effort to regain his trust.”

While his father had spoken, voice even, unemotional and cold, Freed had balled his hands into fists below the table, forcing himself to look his father into the eyes, though the only thing he could see were his father's glasses. Hal was squinting at him, Coen looked ahead, straight-faced and collected. Freed was certain both had already heard all of it.

“I hope that you realise that not even your absolution in front of the court will carry large weight for the public eye, as I am still your father. People will assume it was merely symbolic, no matter if we tell them otherwise. This whole _incident_ has damaged our reputation immensely.”

“Yes, father.” Freed's fingernails pierced into his palms; the feeling was pleasantly distracting from the turmoil in his stomach, as he still held his father's gaze.

“Such a disgrace has not happened in our family since generations!”, his father added, the evenness of his voice finally breaking to reveal that below his professional coldness, he _was_ angry. Freed felt darkly satisfied, and at the same time knew he shouldn't be.

It was only a momentary outburst, though, if he could even call it this way. “I hope you realise that there is going to be a lot of work ahead of you. I expect formal written apologies to Sir Rauckal and all your other tutors, as well as to Lord Balsamico, by midday tomorrow. You will explain that you are extraordinarily sorry for your actions, and that you will fully submit to my assessment of your magic's progress. If I deem your eye too dangerous, we will take different measures.”

He made a short pause, awaiting a reaction, but Freed didn't say a word. He simply stared at his father's glasses, the piercing in his palms becoming sharper and his hands warmer.

“I will also reschedule your classes once more”, he continued eventually, “Despite your extensive studies, you are still not up to your brother's achievements. You will focus on your other classes while I will focus on finding a new tutor for your eye magic, if there is one still willing to teach you after your actions. You will also only enter the library in the company of a servant. Until your grades and control over your eye have improved significantly, you are not allowed to use the library for anything else than studies.”

Involuntarily, Freed turned his eyes to Hal, who shifted awkwardly in his seat in bowed his head down, hiding behind his glasses once more. “It's only for your own good, Freed”, he said, trying to sound as even as their father but without having perfected the art of speaking in an unemotional voice.

“No, it is not”, Freed finally said. He was certain his palms were bleeding, but he didn't care.

Hal flinched the tiniest bit, Coen blew out air as if he only now had let out a breath he had been holding the entire time. Their father leant forward. Freed knew his glasses hid narrowed eyes, two straight and firm lines, just like his lips. “If it would be, you would have allowed me to explain; not as a defendant, but as your son and brother.”

“Are you implying that you did not tell the full truth in the court room?”, his father rumbled.

“I was explaining the situation to my best knowledge at the time. However, I had the chance to think since then and discovered what truly happened with Coen's help.”

Hal's eyes flew over to their middle brother, who nodded thoughtfully.

“Speak”, their father said. He leant back a few centimetres and angled his head such that in order to look at Freed, he had to look down the bridge of his nose.

Freed took in a deep breath before he started. “As much as it embarrasses me to admit it, but what happened can be solely blamed on my inattentiveness, not on a lack of control when it comes to my eye, at least not primarily. I did, indeed, accidentally misspell two characters of the incantation I was supposed to write, and thus changed the word 'wings' into an incomplete version of the words for 'winged darkness', which apparently triggered the effect of the spell 'Darkness' that Sir Rauckal spoke about. Since the spell was incomplete, it was unusually hard to control and only ended after I had used all of my magic power.”

“I don't see how _this_ should make the incident any less dire”, said their father coldly. “Misspellings are mistakes that absolute beginners make. I was under the impression that you are, in fact, no beginner, Freed.”

“I am when it comes to my eye”, Freed objected. “As are we all. I am sorry to appear insolent, father, but neither you, nor Hal, nor Coen, have even the slightest idea how it feels to possess a magical eye that nobody seems to know anything substantial about.”

“He is right, father, and you know that”, Coen said suddenly. Hal's eyes flicked back and forth behind his glasses, eyeing both his brothers suspiciously.

Their father, it appeared, did nothing, apart from turning his head the slightest bit to look at his second son. Coen didn't flinch.

“And since this is the case, I am obligated to voice my doubts that your plans for my future will have any positive effect on me and the control I have over my magic.”

There was no mistaking this time that Hal flinched at the words of his youngest brother and the small smile that had found its way onto the face of his middle brother.

Their father leant back into his chair fully, interlacing his fingers in front of his stomach. “Is that so”, he said, no trace of feelings in his voice.

“Yes, father”, replied Freed. “

“Explain yourself.”

Freed had to gulp down a wave of doubts that the words he was going to say were the right ones, and that he had decided on the right course of actions before he started explaining. “I have always strived for excellence, father. I have always strived to achieve what my brothers have achieved before me, in the same time, with the same perfection. Maybe I even strived to be just like my brothers. But no matter what I did, I couldn't reach them. And when I did, it was nothing special, barely worth mentioning. But now... I have visual proof that I am not Hal, and neither am I Coen. I have this”, he said and gestured at his right eye that pulsed in its socket, not hidden behind his hair like usual. It was visibly difficult for Hal to look at him now. “And though I have never asked for it and might have pretended that it would change nothing for me, it still did. I am sorry if this disappoints you, father; far be it for me to wish to cause you disappointment and all the trouble I must have put you through. But I cannot go on like this. I don't have enough power within me to keep this training, this schedule, up.”

“Then what... what do you suggest?”, Hal said, looking down onto the wine in his glass as if contemplating whether he should drink it or not; not even trying to hide that his voice sounded unusually feeble.

“I have thought about this after I spoke to Coen in the afternoon, and I came up with two solutions that I would like to discuss with you.”

Even if his father remained still like a statue, Hal and Coen nodded.

“It should be clear that my focus should be my magical training, with special attention to my eye. There are classes which I am very good at, or which are not strictly needed. As much as I like listening to Lady Roquefort and discussing Art, this would be one class that we might skip. I... I need free time; my eye reacts strongly to physical and mental exhaustion; the more exhausted I am, the less I can concentrate on improving my control over it. I would remain in the castle and carry on as before, only with more recreational time.”

When the meaning of his last sentence had sunk into Hal's mind, his eyes widened in surprise and his jaw dropped a little. “Are you implying...?”

“Yes. This first idea does not solve the problem that I have no teacher for my eye, and limited experience with it. And I don't think that I could learn completely without guidance. This is why...” Freed had to breath in deeply to keep going, his heart beating heavily. “This is why I would prefer to leave the castle altogether and seek education elsewhere.”

The room became absolutely and unbearably silent. Under the table, Coen put a hand on Freed's knee, squeezed it reassuringly. Hal quickly drowned the content of his wine glass and poured himself another one, their father did not move.

The cat was out of the bag now, and despite the awkward silence, Freed didn't regret his words. There was a reassuring certainty within him that, no matter how difficult it might proof to be, leaving would be his best option for now. “I have thought this through”, he started once more, breaking the silence. “The only way to learn for me seems to be by experience; and with the little theoretical knowledge that we have at our disposal, it might be wise to look for other sources of information elsewhere. Maybe going to Crocus would suffice, but I cannot know that for sure.”

“You are aware that your suggestion is against our family's principles and traditions?”, Freed's father said.

“I beg your pardon, father”, objected Freed. “But _I_ am against our families traditions. For centuries, our family has produced two sons in each generation; the oldest of which would become the successor to the Lord's title, and the younger of which would join the Rune Knights or another law-enforcing unit. In that way, we kept to ourselves while still maintaining connections to the world behind the mountains. If there had been daughters, they would be married off to other noble families. The last generation to produce three sons has lived centuries ago, and they sent their third son Alberick to a cloister at the age of ten. But I am nearly fifteen, and I am still here. I am already an exception.”

It was odd that it didn't bother Freed the slightest to talk about himself like that, and for only the shortest moment, he thought of Bickslow's goofy expression of confusion as he had told the other boy that he had never had many friends and his shrug when Freed had asked him where he wanted to go next. Was the lack of certainty, the lack of a defined fate, what people called freedom?

“You can hardly know which plans I have for you, son”, his father said. “Or which role you are going to play for this family in the future.”

“Then please, father; tell me”, Freed replied. Once more, silence was the only answer he received. “It is true, isn't it? You never knew what to do with me.”

Hal emptied his second glass and the decanter by pouring himself the remaining wine. Next to Freed, Coen squeezed his knee another time and exhaled softly, eyes cast down to the table.

“I hope you will think differently of me when I return, father”, Freed said. It made Hal stop moving the glass towards his lips and Coen smile slightly.

For another awkward moment, nobody said a word.

“You are wrong, Freed. Once you left, you will not come back”, his father spoke up finally, and for the first time since Freed could remember, he smiled. It was a very tiny, very sad smile. It was very odd, indeed.

“I have no objections against serving this family, I only want to finish my eduction before.”

“Then it seems we have the same intention.”

“Does this mean you agree to my suggestion?”

But the hope and delight that bubbled up inside Freed at the prospect of his father's agreement was immediately quenched. “No”, his father said firmly. “I cannot let you leave just so. You have a duty to this family to uphold, and what is more, you have not atoned for your transgressions in front of Sir Rauckal yet. If I simply allow you to leave, the people will lose their trust in my ability to judge fairly, and it will seem as if I forgave you and allowed you to have your way.”

“But what do you have to forgive me _for_?”, Freed burst out. Crushed hopes were an excellent fuel for suppressed anger. “Do you still not believe me that I did not act out of murderous intent? Do you still think that I wanted to harm Sir Rauckal and bring shame to your name?”

“What I personally think is not relevant”, his father said, his tone reminding Freed too much of the chief justice and too less of his father.

“Father, please. Look at this for once through the eyes of ---”, started Coen, but he was interrupted by someone else.

“Exile him.” Hal's eyes had vanished behind his glasses, the wine was gone, too. His lips were shaking the tiniest bit, and he had his head turned such that he didn't face either of his relatives as he spoke.

“I beg your pardon?!”, said Coen loudly, gripped the table with both hands and half-rose from his chair before Hal raised his hands in defiance.

“Exile Freed. For the damage his transgressions have caused to our good name. He is allowed to return once he has atoned.”

For a moment, Freed couldn't think; felt betrayed despite his better knowledge and more disappointed than he had in his entire life. He had known Hal was most likely to agree with their father, but exile? Wasn't that...?

“You cannot be serious, Hal!”, thundered Coen. “Freed has done nothing to warrant this kind of treatment!”

“Has he not?”, said Hal, sunken into his chair, one hand on his empty wine glass. A drop of sweat was running down his brow. “You have heard father, Coen. What Freed has done has cost us the relation with Lord Balsamico, the service of Sir Rauckal and the trust of Sir Banon and Lady Roquefort. We already talked about this before. He cannot go unpunished. But neither can he stay here, can he not?” Hal exhaled a long breath and turned his head, allowing the light to make his glasses see-through. “No, he needs to leave”, he nearly whispered.

Freed caught his breath because Hal smiled, not only his lips, but his eyes, too. Under the table, a foot nudged gently against Freed's shin and then, he understood.

“If this is going to be your decision, I will not object”, he simply said.

It was Coen now who looked back and forth between his brothers, until a small smile found its way onto his face as Freed squeezed his knee under the table. “I see.”

Minutes seemed to pass in silence while neither of the three brothers changed their position and their father obviously deliberated his final decision.

And when he finally said: “Then, so be it”, Freed could have sworn that he looked the tiniest bit heart-broken.

 

...

 

A very awkward dinner followed on the family council. Neither of the four Justines spoke much, and Freed found himself simultaneously frightened and excited by the prospect that this could very well be his last dinner with his family in a while.

Hal had at least two additional glasses of wine and while Coen seemed as unmoving as their father, Freed caught him smirking from time to time and shaking his head at nobody in particular. After they had eaten, their father proclaimed that he would hand out Freed's punishment in the morning and excused himself, quickly followed by his eldest son, who seemed to have minimal problems with walking on a straight line. That left Freed alone with Coen, who decided to accompany Freed back to his room since he was technically still under house arrest.

“Look at you, little brother. You won against our father”, Coen said with a grin on his face as they reached the door to Freed's room.

“Strictly speaking, Hal won”, Freed replied.

“And who would have though that.”

“I need to thank him. And you, too.”

“Don't mention it”, Coen said, a rueful smile ghosting over his lips that reminded Freed of their discussion in his room, staring out at Crocus. “It's time that things change, at least a little.”

“Change... yes”, muttered Freed, suddenly feeling more frightened than excited and taking in a deep breath.

“Don't worry. Leaving is harder than having left”, said Coen, and ruffled Freed's hair. “And besides, I will head back to Crocus in the morning, too. If you want to, we can go a bit of the way together.”

“I would appreciate it.”

Soon after, Freed literally ran back and forth through his room, trying to decide on the clothes and items he needed to take with him on his journey. He tried to sort them into piles according to their importance, but his attempt only ended with a very large 'Take with you under any circumstances!' - pile and a very small 'Not strictly necessary!'-pile. He was going to be exiled, he surely had no servants with him carrying multiple backpacks each. He could consider himself happy if his father allowed him a horse.

When he was about to go through the largest pile again, the door of his room was unlocked once more and another visitor entered the chaos that was currently his room.

Before he could greet her properly, Constance had ran towards him and swept him quite literally off his feet in a tight hug.

“Oh dear”, she whispered, hands intertwined with Freed's hair so tightly it nearly hurt. “I'm so sorry, so very sorry... I've hurt the rumours, they said that you're... I knew your father wasn't pleased and can be very strict, but exile! I'm so sorry...”

“Constance---?”

“... could quit my job and come with....”

“Constance---!”

“... find ourselves a nice little house in the countryside...”

“Constance!”, Freed said even more firmly than before, and tried to bring a little distance between himself and his nursemaid to catch a breath again.

That he shifted in her embrace seemed to calm Constance down, at least a little.

“It's going to be alright, Constance. The exile... how should I explain...” Maybe he shouldn't at all, they needed to keep up pretences, probably. “I'm fine with the decision.”

“How can you be alright with _that_? I heard that your own brother suggested it, I would never thought that _Hal_ of all people...!”

But then again, he couldn't lie to Constance. Not to her. “Hal suggested it because it's the best solution for everyone”, Freed said calmly. “Father can pretend that he is punishing me with the exile, and I can leave the castle to seek education for my eye elsewhere. Really, Constance. I'm fine.”

Every trace of excitement or agitation left Constance's face and body, and suddenly, she became very silent. “You... you _want_ to leave?”

She sounded heart-broken. If Freed had ever been under the impression that nobody was going to miss him if he left, this illusion was now shattered.

“I... I want to, no; I need to learn to control my eye properly”, he said awkwardly. “And I can't as long as I'm here.”

For a very tense moment, all that Constance did was to stare at him, furrowed brows accentuating the lines in her face and pure sadness in her eyes. Just looking at her hurt, but Freed returned her gaze. It wouldn't be easy, no. For neither of them.

An eternity later, it seemed, Constance hugged Freed once more. It was a softer hug, nearly careful; and instead of burying her hands into his hair, she patted it carefully.

She held him for a very long time, and parted only reluctantly and more because they both knew that they would have to eventually. Her cheeks were wet when she looked at Freed again, but so were his.

And still, she smiled. “You're going on quite an adventure, I suppose”, she finally said.

“Yes”, Freed replied. “I think I do.”

“Well then”, she said, pushing loose hair out of her face. She clapped her hands together and rubbed the palms against each other, taking one deep breath that lit her face up with new life. “When I look at this mess, you clearly need someone to help you pack.”

And Freed was just too happy to oblige when she was the one to look through his big pile of items and clothes now.

Constance proofed to be vastly more effective than he had been, sorting out clothes by the dozen, as well as books, different pens and stacks of paper and parchment.

“You need to focus on the most important things”, she said in a very educational tone as she took one of Freed's most beloved summer shirts from the pile. “Winter is coming, and the days will get colder soon. You clearly need versatile clothes, and more coats and thicker shirts that will keep you warm. Besides”, she put the shirt on the pile with the less important items and turned around to Freed, who was currently trying to limit his assortment of paper to one folder, “Speaking of winter, do promise me that you will try to find a place to stay for the season. I don't want to have to worry about you getting stuck in a snow storm.”

“I actually didn't intend to take the term 'adventure' too literally. I would like to find a more permanent residence, preferably close to a school or university that teaches magic”, Freed gave back. His folder was getting thicker, and he still hadn't included his favourite stationeries.

Constance nodded mutely. She was currently folding a woollen jacket and proceeded to put it on the pile with the essential items. “I hope you realise that you will need money for this, dear”, she said conversationally. “But I guess your father has enough of that.”

“Uhm...” Warmth shot into Freed's ears. He had thought about many things, but not about money. “I don't think he will send me a monthly allowance. I am technically going into exile”, he said thoughtfully.

Constance sighed. “Then, my dear Freed”, she said and looked up from her work to where Freed was sitting, brows raised. “You will need a job.”

Freed felt his ears burning; he really hadn't thought of _that_. How did one find a job? He had wanted to spend most of his time studying, but he needed an income in a world where living somewhere was probably not for free, and other methods like stealing money were quite certainly out of question. And he did have talents, he was a rather good wizard, good at fencing, well-educated, could play the violin and prided himself on having an at least decent singing voice. And even if his father would not approve, a wizard could nearly always find work. Hopefully.

“Maybe I could join a guild. Wizards usually find work in wizarding guilds, do they not? And amongst other wizards, maybe I even meet people with experience on eye magic.”

On the other side of the room, Constance chuckled. “I see you are in rather optimistic about this 'adventure' of yours.”

“I think I need to be”, Freed replied while he bound up the finished folder. “If I start worrying before I have even left, maybe I won't leave at all.”

They continued working through Freed's belongings, and after a few hours, had the most important items stored into a massive backpack, that Freed could just barely carry comfortably. Their task had kept their minds occupied, and their spirits high, but when the clothes and items that Freed would leave behind were stored back where they originally belonged, Constance grew visibly sadder.

The minutes crept by awkwardly, Freed couldn't decide if he wanted her to stay or to go when Coen's words came back to his mind. Knowing that he would leave indeed felt very difficult.

When the world outside had already turned pitch black, Constance finally prepared to leave.

“Drionne always told me that they grow up so fast; I didn't want to believe her. Look at me now”, she said quietly, the doorknob already in her hand.

“Well, I am nearly fifteen”, Freed gave back matter-of-factly. “I would say it even took me quite a few years compared to Hal and Coen.”

“Not quite, Freed”, Constance replied and chuckled. She turned her head over her shoulder to look at Freed once more, but opened the door at the same time. “It only took you three days.”

She was out of the room faster than Freed could have replied, and when the door was locked, Freed found himself puzzled. Had he changed so much in such a short time, or did the world around him change?

He looked outside of his window, to where he could barely make out the illuminated tower of Mercurius in the distance. No, the world was still the same.

He didn't sleep well that night, despite soft pillows and a warm blanket; he was too nervous, couldn't wait to finally leave while at the same time, he feared leaving more than anything else in the world.

But he would see this through, and stick to his decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the family council was long due. And I have to admit that I like Hal getting drunk :)


	16. Interlude: Laughter

A shot echoed back and forth between the houses, quickly followed by a second. Birds, alarmed by the sudden noise, fled the scene.

The pain was too sharp, too much for his exhausted legs. He simply slumped to the ground, onto his knees, hardly realising any more that he was losing blood.

He had gone on for hours, run through fields, forests, little settlements, but they'd always caught up to him. Always.

The sun burned down mercilessly, had it really been a few hours since they had found him in that village, or more? He had lost track of time what seemed like hours ago, and at the same time, only seconds.

A smirk ghosted over his face, what had Freed said, two nights ago in that cornfield? The guy with the real specs was able to track magic?

Too bad that Bickslow couldn't turn his off, if he wanted to or not.

Now they'd cornered him on a farm somewhere, he lad lost track where he had run, too. Carrot-head had shot twice, Bickslow had only been able to evade the first round.

Monster-brows with the burned-off beard was standing closest to him, a knife in his hand.

“That's where I like you, bandage-face. On your knees”, he drawled.

Bickslow couldn't help it, he laughed. “Am I too much for you to handle otherwise, big guy?”, he mocked, pressing the words between clenched teeth.

There was satisfaction in controlling someone else, and they wouldn't leave satisfied, not if he could help it.

“Oh not at all”, the mercenary singsonged before his voice turned dark and heavy. “On the contrary. You are nothing.”

The mercenary put a hand on Bickslow's chin, and drew him closer. He was so small that only now their faces were at about the same level. The closer the awful visage with the sadistic grin came, the stronger Bickslow felt his own heart beat, the pain in his leg and that stupid feeling of panic that he tried to fight.

It wasn't as if he had anything to lose, why should he bother to be afraid.

“You are just a street kid; a thief; an ant meant to be crushed. What remains of you when I take these away?”

A knife gleamed in the sun, cold steel was pressed to his cheek, tip pointing at his eye. “A scared little kid with a mouth too big for his own good.”

Bickslow wouldn't flinch, instead, he spat the mercenary in the face and laughed at his disgusted expression.

Bow strings were drawn and the mercenary grunted and swore under his breath, his hand and the knife were roughly taken away from Bickslow's face, cutting his cheek in the process.

“And you're only cool 'cause you've got shiny specs now, all _nine_ of you”, he snarled, but his hands were shaking. “Try coming alone next time.” The hand holding his knee was red with blood, _his_ blood.

Two mercenaries were on the roofs of the houses, three at the entrance of the alley, two behind him. Carrot-head stood half a step behind monster-brows. “Savour these jokes”, the man said. His pistol was now pointing directly at Bickslow's chest. “They will be your last.”

His hand felt so warm, so unsettlingly warm and damp. He wanted to make a comeback, but his breath was going too rapidly, his eyes were drawn to the man with the red hair; making jokes was harder looking directly into the barrel of a gun.

His soul was coloured like cow dung, streaked with a red too orange to be like blood, and too dark to be confused with anything pleasant.

“Not only did you help our most profitable job of the last year escape”, started monster-brows after he had dried his face. “No, you did something far worse.”

Black clouds came to life in a sea of purple, a corona of burning blood surrounded his body. His eyes were like coal, waiting to be ignited, full of something so painfully familiar, something that fuelled the panic Bickslow couldn't fight any longer.

“You humiliated us”, the mercenary growled. He changed the position of the knife in his hand so that it pointed at Bickslow's chest now, too. “Made us a into one of your twisted jokes.”

His heart threatened to break through his rips. If he could only move his legs... he was faster than them, more agile...

“Made us fight like your fucking puppets”, the mercenary went on and came closer. The tip of the knife began to press into Bickslow's chest.

He felt sweat running down his face, lost control over the shaking in his limbs completely. He barely kept his back straight. _No satisfaction_ , he repeated in his mind, but it wasn't helping that much any more.

“And don't think for one second that I forgot how you sat on that lamp post and _laughed_ while my beard got burned off.” The mercenary's voice had become a deep, dark growl, and for the first time, Bickslow felt frightened at the sound of it.

In a last act of defiance, he tried to knock the glasses of the fat mercenary's face, but his punch got quickly intercepted by a gloved hand that grabbed his wrist hard.

“Don't even try”, the man said in an eerily soft, eager voice.

They always remembered when he let them go. Always remembered what he made them do; the boy with the wicked eyes.

Dammit, he should have learned. He should have _known_.

Something like a distant cackling erupted from somewhere, and it took him seconds before he realised it was his own.

The spot on his chest where the knife pierced him began to feel warm; faintly. Blood was running over his open mouth from the cut on his cheek, tasting stale and metallic. In the distance, the souls of the mercenaries began to fade, back into invisibility.

It was hilarious; so _fucking_ hilarious.

He would end here, deprived of the thing in his life that he hated and loved more than anything else, unable to move, because a group of mercs had decided to get back at him -

 _Again_. So fucking _ironic_.

Memories came crushing down on him like big balls of fire and ice; the day that Indra and Oreon left, the day Salima left and his uncle tried to tell him it wasn't because of him - the squinted looks, hushed whispers, the flashes in their souls whenever he looked at them; the old hag and her babbling of him being cursed -

Maybe he was, what did it matter?

The day they'd all been gone, the day when he tried to be good but wasn't; the same day they slew his uncle. Because he was an idiot, such a fucking _idiot_ ; he made mistakes but never learned, he loved his eyes though they were cursed; he thought to be clever but ended up being pathetic.

The old hag had died, too and the scroll she'd given him had done nothing except for burning a _fucking stick figure_ onto his forehead -

So _ridiculous_!

Bickslow closed his eyes, allowing pain and fear to dull everything else, all his senses; forgetting everything that he had just remembered.

Really, what did _anything,_ any of these moments, anything about _him,_ still matter?!

Shrill, joyless laughter echoed back and forth between the walls of the houses as he decided that now, _nothing_ mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subtitle of this chapter: Kukolnyy the troll is back in action!  
> ...  
> Believe me, I have a vague idea of what I'm doing to you, dear reader. But this needed to be done.


	17. Wings

The next morning, Freed was woken up very early by Coen, who was already wearing his uniform. He explained that he wanted to leave as fast as possible to report back to his company before lunchtime. The following hour passed for Freed in a strange tension, he felt a little like a compressed spring waiting to be released. Putting on clothes, eating breakfast, going over his luggage a last time – all passed in a haze of oddly unfocussed thoughts, too fast and too slow at the same time.

When he found himself in the courtyard next to Coen and his horse, he wasn't certain if even a minute had passed since waking up, though his mind told him that it had to.

Constance came hurrying into the courtyard almost immediately after he had arrived himself, and it was obvious that she hadn't slept much herself. She handed Freed and Coen each a bag with provisions, though Freed's was distinctively larger. She didn't explain anything, but Freed thought to smell cherries, and smiled brightly at his nursemaid, who winked at him in return.

It took a few more minutes before Hal appeared on the courtyard, too; again in his most formal clothing. He carried a scroll like the day before, and Freed understood that he was here to hand out his formal punishment. He also wasn't sure if Hal's ears were slightly reddened and his step a little wonky, of if the early morning sun was playing a trick on his one opened eye.

Hal stopped next to his brothers, made sure the guards paid attention and unsealed the scroll. “Freed Justine. For transgressions against this family's code of conduct, for physically assaulting Sir Lorentz Rauckal and damaging this family's relation to a foreign Lord, you are hereby exiled from these grounds. You will leave this castle and its lands and are only allowed to return after you atoned for your crimes. Your sentence is to be carried out immediately.”

Freed nodded heavily, and from the corners of his eyes, he saw that Constance, though expecting the sentence, gaped and fought tears.

Coen and Hal only exchanged a glance. “Come on, little brother”, Coen muttered then. “Let's leave.”

“But...”, objected Freed, his eyes still glued on Hal, who stiffened and kept his face as straight as possible. “What about father? Will he not say goodbye?”

Hal didn't flinch, though he looked as if he wanted to. Behind Freed, Coen sighed and put a hand on Freed's shoulder. “He won't come, Freed.”

Feeling unusually numb, Freed climbed onto the horse behind Coen, looking back and forth between his brothers and the windows of the castle, but there was no sign of his father.

“Farewell, Freed”, Hal whispered, more to the ground than towards his brother. He was fighting with himself, Freed saw the unrest behind his glasses. “May you find what you have been looking for, and may we meet again.”

“All the very best, my dear”, said Constance in a voice that held back tears. “Take care of yourself for me, will you? Don't forget that the days will be getting colder soon. And always brush your teeth!”

And before Freed could completely grasp the situation, Coen had clapped the spurs into his horse and they were riding down the courtyard, down the bridge and the path that lead away from the castle in the middle of Lake Saffron.

It took Freed until they arrived at the foot of the mountains to get over the feeling that his father hadn't come to say goodbye. A part of him rationalised that he was, in fact, going into exile and that they had already treated him nicely by allowing him to pack and travel a part of the way with his brother, but another, more emotional part of him was still somehow hurt.

After reaching the plains that lead towards Crocus, Coen became more talkative again and additionally tried to get Freed's mind off of things by asking him about his plans.

“I thought of joining a wizard guild”, he said truthfully.

“Not a bad idea”, replied Coen. “Have you already considered which one?”

“I... admittedly only know Blue Pegasus”, Freed said somewhat sheepishly.

In front of him, Coen laughed out. “How come you've heard of them, of all things?”

“Well... Bickslow; he had a magazine and told me a bit... about Blue Pegasus”, Freed replied. He was glad that Coen couldn't see him and his slight blush. It wasn't that he felt embarrassed by his limited knowledge, but he didn't really want to get into the detail of how Bickslow had obtained that magazine.

“Let me guess: The Sorcerer Magazine”, said Coen. He sounded highly amused. “That Bickslow, you said he's a little older than you?”

“One or two years I'd estimate, yes. Why?”

“So about sixteen, then. I guess I'll let it pass”, Coen simply said, and he was most likely grinning, while Freed had no idea what he was talking about. “Anyway. Back to the original issue. Blue Pegasus is indeed one of the more well-known guilds in Fiore.”

“Can you tell me more?”

And Coen could, and soon enough, the brothers were engaged in an discussion about the qualities of wizarding guilds. Or better, Freed listened to Coen explain and asked questions from time to time.

“Blue Pegasus, while we're at it, is not only a wizard guild. They're also operating a bar, or maybe more a club, where they serve customers. I'm not sure if I'd recommend them considering your age, though”, was Coen's advice about Blue Pegasus. Freed decided that he would most likely find out soon enough and dropped the subject.

“Then there's Lamia Scale. They are highly respected in the wizarding world, as far as I know, but we hardly have any business with them in the Rune Knights. They are also rumoured to have a very skilled young man in their ranks, Jura Neekis. I have heard many people sing his praises lately, he probably has quite a future.” Freed made a mental note about the guild and that he would definitely need to look deeper into it.

“Then let me see... there's Quatro Cerberus, but I doubt they'd be of any help to you. Also, they get into trouble with us a little too often, if you ask me. Mermaid Heel is out of question, they only take girls... oh yes, there's of course Phantom Lord.” Coen's voice suddenly turned darker and away from the chatty tone their – rather one-sided – conversation had had before.

“Whatever happens, Freed – don't join Phantom Lord. They might be legal, but their methods are... questionable, at best. It's true that their master José is a Wizard Saint, but I don't believe that his way of operating his guild is worth it.”

“Wizard Saint?”, asked Freed, though his brother's urgent tone was warning enough to put Phantom Lord on the bottom of his mental checklist.

“The Ten Wizard Saints are considered the most wise and powerful wizards in all of Fiore. They are appointed by the Magic Council and highly respected throughout the country. Sometimes, they are still part of their guild, like José; sometimes, they leave their original guild upon their endorsement. That reminds me...” Coen exhaled a drawn-out breath, sounding somewhat dramatic. “There is probably one more.”

“One more guild?”, asked Freed.

“Yes. Fairy Tail”, Coen gave back a little gloomily. “A ragtag bunch of misfits, so to say. Troublemakers. We get into contact with one of them much too often, because their master is too soft-hearted and rumoured to have a screw loose somewhere. These people constantly cause property damage wherever they go, most of all a fellow called Gildarts Clive.”

“Why would I want to join a guild that gets into conflict with the Rune Knights so often?”

“Maybe because their master is a Wizard Saint, too. His name is Makarov Dreyar, and screw loose or not, he is well-liked and respected in the magic community, it seems. They are a highly effective guild; powerful, too. Just a bit... well. Destructive.”

They left it at that, and Freed mentally put Fairy Tail below Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus. It appeared he had a lot of reading to do before he could arrive at a decision.

Their discussion about guilds had taken them far into the plains leading towards Crocus, following the river. When they arrived at the first bridge, Freed stopped his brother.

“I would like to cross the river here, if you don't mind.”

“You know I will not come with you”, Coen replied while he stopped his horse and descended.

“Yes, I do. But my journey needs to start somewhere, and that will not be Crocus.”

A thoughtful smile moved over Coen's face. “I expected that much.”

He helped Freed descend, too, since his backpack inhibited his mobility quite a bit. Then, he rummaged in the saddle bags and pulled out a little pouch.

“I hope you know that both Hal and I wish you all the best”, he said and handed the pouch over to Freed. It contained a not insignificant amount of banknotes. “Call this starter cash, if you will. Hal and I agreed last night that you'll probably need it, but we couldn't give it to you while still in the castle.”

These last two days, Freed had seen sides of his elder brothers that he hadn't realised existed before – Coen had changed so much, had become so … open, and even Hal, even the untouchable Hal, suddenly seemed to have a soft heart. Or had he just not seen it before, had he been blind? A wave of what probably was homesickness overcame Freed; suddenly, he wanted to tell Hal that he had always looked up to him the most, and that he was thankful for his understanding and support. But he couldn't, probably wouldn't be able to in a long time.

They had thought the exile was a clever plan. But thinking of his older brother back at home, Freed wasn't so certain anymore. At least, Hal had said goodbye.

“About father...”, Freed heard himself muttering.

Coen answered with a wary sigh. “A lion can't change his spots, they say. You know Hal. You know how he is, how he always tries to hide everything he feels. Father had a good twenty-five years more to learn how to keep everything inside. Try not to be angry at him too much.”

“I'm not angry”, Freed replied truthfully. “I'm... I don't know. I honestly don't.”

“Sometimes, I don't either”, admitted Coen. He ruffled though Freed's hair once more, but made a point to smile.

And then, as if it had always meant to be that way, Freed hugged his brother. “Thank you Coen, for everything you've done for me.”

“I said don't mention it”, Coen replied, but Freed heard him chuckle. “We'll be in touch?”

“I will send you letters, I packed my stationeries just in case.”

“Good. Well then...”, Coen said as they parted. He smiled still, but Freed felt again that haziness of wanting to go and stay at the same time. “Best of luck in finding a guild, little brother.”

Freed looked towards the plains on the other side of Crocus, towards the little grove he had passed two days ago. He could see it on the horizon, small and dark green against the yellow fields of harvested crops.

“I think I have something else I need to do first.”

 

...

 

It was lunchtime when he reached the grove, and early afternoon when he crossed the fields with the fresh straw bales he and Bickslow had rested on two days ago.

He had made the decision very quickly that if his family would agree to let him go, before looking for a guild or university or anything else, he would try to find Bickslow. He had thought about it for a good while before, thought about how they had parted ways. He had thought back then that they were so very different; part of two different worlds. But now, it appeared to him more like an obstacle he wanted to overcome – they both had eye magic, and both had suffered from it, in one way or another. They had probably different experiences, different views on the world – two days ago, it had appeared to him as if this would make them unfit to be anything more than temporary companions. But now, he had the faint hope that maybe exactly because they were so different, they had a lot to learn from each other. And at the very least, he wanted to say goodbye to Bickslow properly, and not while still partly in conflict with each other. For that, he needed to understand.

And for that, he needed to find Bickslow, which sounded simpler to Freed than it probably would turn out to be. He intended to go to the small village Bickslow had run off to first, and use a rune-based compass from there on. And then, with a little luck, he would find that the other boy hadn't run away to a different spot again.

There were farmers on the fields this day, harvesting the remaining crops. A little while later, Freed indeed reached a road; it was most likely the road coming down from Gladiolus, the village on the other side of the river, that lead further into the land. He could also make out the settlement in the distance, it looked as if the road was leading him directly towards his destination if he decided to follow it.

With a now very clear picture about where he was exactly and where he needed to go next, Freed decided that it was time for a little break. He hadn't eaten anything from Constance's provisions yet, and most of all, hadn't tried out the cherry tartlets that he knew were hidden between the sandwiches. He found a group of big stones that could be used as a makeshift bench (even if a dirty one) and had his first meal away from the castle.

He didn't find much time for contemplation, though. A few minutes after he had sat down an elderly man with a hand-drawn cart full of various goods and trinkets paused at the stones. “Do you mind if I sit down, young man?”, he sat in a friendly voice, and as Freed didn't object but instead made more room for the man to sit, he took a bag of provisions from his cart and joined Freed with his own meal in hands.

After a few minutes passed in silence, the man raised his voice once more while Freed had just contemplated whether to eat a cherry tartlet or not. “Goodness, look at that backpack! You sure carry around a lot of stuff, young man.”

A little confused that he had been spoken to, Freed looked up and compared his backpack to the older man's cart. “Yes, I think you could say that. But your cart looks heavy, too.”

The old man answered with a laugh. “Oh, you get used to that. It's nothing, you should've seen it yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Are you a merchant?” It would make sense, considering the odd mishmash of things in the cart – there were bags with what looked like flour and pottery, but also bracelets and necklaces and an imitation of a sword made from wood.

“Yep, the famous Mercer Spring of Barbary Nut, at your service. Though you don't look as if I can get you interested in something, am I right? Or maybe a necklace for your sister, or your girlfriend, maybe?”, the man said with grandeur, made a little bow and winked at Freed.

“Uhm... I have only two brothers, and before you ask, they are older than me and don't need wooden swords any more”, Freed replied plainly, though his ears felt a little warm.

“Oh well, bad for me, don't you think?”, the merchant answered, all the while he still smiled and winked at Freed once more.

“You might be able to help me with something else, though, if I am allowed to ask a few questions.”

“You make that sounds ominously important”, the merchant said. “But I'm always happy to be of service. Shoot.”

Freed glanced over to the merchant, a little insecure, but the still inviting smile of the man made it clear that he could speak freely. “Well, first: You are a travelling merchant, am I correct?”

“Well that one's obvious”, said the merchant with a chuckle, and nodded towards his cart.

“Have you, by chance, had business in the village down the road in the last few days?”

“You're not from here, are you?”, the merchant asked in return, and as Freed shook his head, he instead nodded knowingly. “That explains it. The village down the road _is_ Barbary Nut. So I don't only have business there, I live there.”

“I beg your pardon, I only know this area from a few maps. I'm... a traveller, you could say.”

“Not a problem, young man. So back to your question, my business actually entails trading my village's goods with both Gladiolus”, he gestured towards the village on the other side of the river, where Freed and Bickslow had rested three days ago, “and of course, Crocus.”

“Ah, I see. Then you must travel on this road a lot, don't you?”, asked Freed.

“At least twice a week, much to the regret of my wife. But alas! What must be done, must be done.”

“Then this question might appear a little strange to you, but I am currently looking for someone”, Freed started. The smile of the merchant faltered a little. “Have you – just by chance! - come across a boy with a bandaged face in this area, about two days ago? He's about sixteen, but very tall, thin and has blue hair and wears ragged clothes.”

“Strange”, the merchant answered simply. The smile had vanished from his face, he squinted at Freed now. “You're the second person to ask about a boy like that today.”

Something about the way he spoke boded ill. “Who was the first?”, asked Freed.

“Not one person, actually. A group of mercenaries, seven... no, nine, men with the crest of Red Minotaur, when I was on my way from Crocus to Gladiolus. I was wondering what they wanted from a child, but then again... that description, they said the boy was a criminal. And now a dapper young man asks me the same question. And now that I think of it...”

“Think of what?”, Freed interrupted, too impatient to wait for the merchant to continue on his own. He had already stopped eating his second sandwich and wasn't thinking about the cherry tartlets at all.

“They also asked for a younger boy with a long green braid and tattered fancy clothing.”

“Blimey.” This wasn't good, not at all. Coen had told him earlier that their father had called the mercenaries off, why were they still searching for Bickslow? In any case, he had no time to waste; he packed up his lunch while the merchant was still glancing at him.

“Were they looking for you?”, he asked.

Freed shortly considered lying, but decided that it was too suspicious if he tried and still very much against his codex. “Yes. And for someone I know.”

“A criminal boy. Street rat, probably”, the merchant added. He was completely serious now and eyed Freed suspiciously, his own food forgotten, too.

“He's... not that bad”, said Freed. He had hesitated a bit, but no matter what he had done to the mercenaries, Bickslow had helped him, and he had been genuine about it. “I actually think he's... well...”

At that, the merchant sighed heavily. “It's alright. Who in this world isn't a little lost? Listen, if you need to know, I send them to Barbary Nut. They were a little scary, so I told them that I saw a boy like that roaming through the village a few days back.”

“And that is the truth?”, Freed inquired urgently. He had already started to fasten his backpack.

The merchant looked a little hurt. “Of course, I don't lie! That's really bad for the reputation!”

“Thank you, sir”, was all Freed said before he nodded curtly and marched down the road to Barbary Nut. If they were looking for Bickslow as well, that only meant trouble.

 

...

 

Barbary Nut was hardly worth being called a village. It consisted of a few houses next to the main road and several little alleys in between them. The houses all looked a little unusual, had oddly shaped door plates and colourful fences and roof tops. It was hardly possible for someone to hide here for long, that much was clear to Freed. Which meant two things: First, a group of nine mercenaries couldn't hide here for even a few hours, and thus, the mercenaries weren't here. And second, this probably meant that Bickslow wasn't here, either; or he had managed to trick them again.

Freed's best option seemed to be to stick to his original plan and use his compass spell. It was a simple construct of a few runes that erected a barrier which could only be left in the direction in which the target was currently located. Freed was a little proud that he had come up with the strategy for this spell by himself; he had originally tailored this barrier for the opposite purpose, namely that the barrier would only let him out in the direction farthest away from the target, to escape the mercenaries most effectively. He trusted his runes and that they wouldn't betray him, and so, he placed a new compass-barrier around himself every so often and left Barbary Nut behind.

His runes lead him away from the road, through fields and a little forest, and the search carried on for too long for Freed's tastes. The longer he moved, the more the feeling intensified that he did not like the mercenaries still targeting Bickslow, and apparently himself. Something about that was not right; they weren't acting on a contract and that only let open a handful of options, all rather unpleasant.

His sense of foreboding only heightened when he saw black billows of smoke rising in the distance, nearly in the same direction in which his runes currently made him go. As much as possible with his unhandy backpack, Freed accelerated his pace, heading straight towards the smoke.

A few hundred metres later, he could see that it was a single warehouse or granary that was ablaze and a good dozen of people with buckets of water trying to extinguish the flames. A bigger complex of farms encircled in solid, more than man-high wooden walls, lay in a distance behind it, and this was the direction in which his runes were pointing.

Freed regretted for a moment that he had insisted on taking so much clothing and other items on his journey; the backpack made him slow, slower than he wanted to be. He could feel the tension within him, something already akin to fear – what had just happened here?

He asked one of the farmers at the burning granary, one who wasn't hurrying towards the well at the moment, the same question.

“I don't really get it either, son”, he answered. “One minute, everything's as usual, the next, the granary starts burning and these mercs appear.”

“Mercenaries?”, Freed inquired. “Red Mino---”

He didn't get to finish as suddenly, a gunshot rang out, quickly followed by a second.

Freed dropped his backpack, it made him too slow. “Have an eye on it for me, please.”

He didn't wait for an answer. The granary and the farm complex were separated by another large field, it were at least another few hundred metres until he could reach it.

He ran.

Whoever had shot, whatever went on – hopefully, they had missed; because of all the possibilities why the mercenaries were still after them, every single one of them that involved gunshots meant trouble.

They were brutal, and they had been tricked by teenagers, five times in just two days. Freed didn't know much about mercenaries, but from what he had read – and from what he understood – it must have eaten away at their confidence and now, they probably looked for satisfaction. Looked to prove that they could catch the two boys who had tricked them once too often.

If Dooley was with them, he had surely already registered Freed. But he had no other choice; this time, he was armed, this time, he was prepared to encounter them, though he couldn't set up barriers beforehand.

He would not allow these men to capture the boy who had helped him. No matter if Bickslow had made them fight each other, no matter if it was justified or not. One injustice did never allow for a second one as retaliation.

He ran as fast as he could, and the houses drew nearer and nearer. There were people on the rooftops of the stables. It couldn't take him more than a few minutes to get there, hopefully the shots had missed, hopefully...

But then, Freed caught another sound that startled him out of his wits and made him forget to run. Someone _laughed_. A loud, shrill, ear-splitting noise that resounded between the houses and the wooden walls; so familiar, but so  different. It drove shivers down Freed's spine and panic into his stomach – he had never heard someone laugh like this. Laughter was meant to convey happiness, and even if Bickslow seemingly laughed for a whole lot of other reasons, nobody's laughter was meant to be like _this_.

Not like the sound of shattering glass, not like the sound of a storm howling around the towers of his castle in the deepest winter. Not screeching. Not desperate. Not broken.

A few minutes was too much, even if he remembered to move once the first shock had left his bones. It was just an intuition, simply a feeling – but he knew that if he wouldn't be faster, even a few seconds could be a few seconds too much.

There weren't many things that could have helped him now. He had no horse, couldn't bend time with his runes or make himself faster. He only had a magic eye, a rapier and a spell that had never worked before.

But even that didn't matter, because there was no other option. Sometimes, little fears paled next to an even greater one. It had to work, it simply had to. And he had no time to ponder.

Freed drew his rapier while still running, wrote the runes with the tip of his weapon into the air before him. A pulse of pain shot through his eye as he released magic, but when the word hit him square on the chest, he suddenly knew that it had worked.

He could feel the pulsing in his eye, now synchronising with his heartbeat. He could feel the darkness of the eye becoming akin to a physical force again, but instead of swallowing him, it lifted him up and created a cushion for him, an invisible force that held him up in the air, twirled around him and finally manifested in wings on his back.

It even showed him how to fly, or maybe he just simply knew it; because the blink of an eye later, he darted through the air, faster than he could have ever run, his rapier in hand and prepared to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be Fairy Tail without a little Power of Friendship moment.


	18. Revenge

The rooftops of the farmhouses were drawing nearly extremely fast.

He was going up against nine armed men, if his information was correct. He could probably defeat a few of them in a straight fight, but surely not all of them, so he needed to trick them again.

He was dashing head first into a situation he had no control of, he was very aware of that. He wasn't even sure if they were expecting him or not, if Dooley had registered his compass spell. They surely couldn't see him approaching due to the big walls. What he needed were several strategies that promised success and used his current ability to fly, and the ability to improvise in between the steps.

And whatever had caused the loud and empty laughter that still resounded in between the houses, it wasn't good and Freed needed to do something about it. Very fast.

The best option for a start was a distraction.

There were two mercenaries on the rooftops of two opposing stables, both with bows drawn and pointing into the space between the buildings. It was also from where Freed discerned the laughter, and several loud voices. Until now, nobody had seen him, but it would change soon enough.

So he could just as well choose the moment they would see him by himself. He used his rapier and his eye to write a modified version of the 'Ignition' spell into the air before him and aimed it at the closest mercenary. It hit his metallic armour, which then heated up rapidly, and not even a second later, the mercenary was screaming and flailing his arms around wildly.

A commotion broke loose on the ground, an arrow was shot from the second rooftop but Freed was able to evade it. Meanwhile, he wrote one of the paralysing runes he had used as traps before into the air and infused it with magic from his eye, aiming at the second mercenary on the other rooftop. The men froze as the spell hit him, and Freed was once more pleased by his newest invention. It would make his job much simpler.

He reached the nearest stable as the people on the ground became aware of him. He projected a cancellation rune onto the screaming mercenary in the heated armour and followed it up with another paralysing rune.

Two mercenaries neutralised, seven to go.

He needed an overview over the situation on the ground. There was still laughter, and as much as the sound was unsettling, it was also relieving to hear.

Freed stopped his flight over the gap between the two stables, just long enough to have a good look at the situation before he made his decision and retreated onto the rooftop of the first stable.

Somewhere within his body, something had twisted and turned painfully at the sight; but he needed to keep focussed now. The burning sensation in his eye helped; there was still darkness surrounding him, but it felt more like a tunnel, helping him to see the most important things and fading out the panic.

Three mercenaries with guns were in the back of the open space, and he needed to cut them off, so that he wouldn't need to worry about having them in his own back.

The trick he had used in the shack should work. Freed scratched a rune into the corner of the roof using his rapier, and flew over to the other roof. Bullets and arrows were fired, and someone screamed: “Well, look at this! Squirrel's become a flying squirrel!”

Retreating over the rooftop made the arrows and bullets miss him, but it was only for a short moment that Freed allowed himself refuge. Just enough to draw another rune into the corner, a continuation rune that erected a barrier between the two stables and cut off the three mercenaries on the other side. Their arrows and bullets recoiled from his barrier; he had created it such that nothing could penetrate it from the inside. To get to him and the others, they would need to go the long way around the stables now.

Only a few seconds had passed since the battle had started, Freed was astonished how fast he could be when he used the wings. But now he had used up nearly all of the advantage that he had expected his speed and the moment of surprise to grant him, and the little bit that was left now needed to serve a different purpose than defeating the mercenaries.

As quick as he could he dashed down from the roof, hit the mercenary closest to Bickslow with another paralysing rune and landed in front of his ally. The barrier he drew around them was a little sloppy due to being a little rushed, but it was everything he could muster in the short time he had before bows and guns were re-aimed at him and fired.

But the barrier also granted him a little moment to come down from his fight-induced high.

As the adrenaline waned, the twisting in his stomach intensified and it grew harder to block out the screams and shouts of the mercenaries who shot numerous arrows and bullets that recoiled from the two barriers he had erected. He didn't have all the time in the world, he knew that. But he needed at least a little moment.

The sound of the broken laughter behind him still made him cringe. But when he turned around, what he saw was just equally horrible: Bickslow knelt on the ground, slumped together, a pile of long limps, rags and blood. One hand was holding a bleeding leg, the other just hang limply at his side as if he had forgotten it. There was blood on his chest, too; and a knife lying in his lap. It was hard for Freed to suppress the nausea, hard to wrap his head around what he saw, around the thought that these people, these mercenaries, these brutes had just tried to kill a boy.

With his barrier protecting him for the moment, he knelt down himself. Bickslow didn't seem to notice, he laughed still; but when Freed saw his face, his eyes pressed shut so firmly as if he didn't want to open them again, blood running over his mouth and everything mixed with tears, he wasn't even sure if Bickslow was laughing at all; or if he wasn't rather crying.

“Bickslow”, he said soothingly, but it had no effect.

He carefully came closer, acting purely on intuition. The blood on the other boys' chest disturbed him the most, he had seen the bushy-browed mercenary pressing a knife dangerously close to his heart, the same blade that now lay in Bickslow's lap. The bushy-browed man was already paralysed. Freed took the knife carefully, but nothing changed about the crying laughter. The blade was blood stained, but fortunately only about a centimetre starting from the tip.

“Bickslow”, he repeated a little more firmly, but the other boy still didn't respond.

“Bickslow!”, he cried a third time, grabbing his ally's shoulders now. Still no response.

He looked so broken, but still, there was something about Bickslow reminiscent of a mousetrap, tension kept inside, waiting to be triggered. But he had no choice, and so, he shook the other boy firmly, ready to deal with the consequences. “Bickslow, please! Pull yourself together!”

The eruption he had waited for never came, but the laughing grew weaker until it was clearly more a sobbing and a boy desperately catching his breath.

“F...freed?”, muttered Bickslow, and a weight the size of mountain fell from Freed's chest. He looked disoriented, dazed; his eyes weren't focussed anywhere when he lifted his head and glanced at Freed, pure disbelief on his face.

“It's alright. You're safe”, Freed said quickly, and made sure to grab Bickslow's shoulders firmly once more. He feared that his time to rest was already nearly up, shadows had come closer and the screams had gotten louder. And with the way Bickslow glanced behind Freed, eyes still hazy but frightened, too; he was sure the mercenaries had already closed the gap towards his barrier.

Freed quickly took off his overcoat and handed it to his ally. “Press this onto your leg, and do me a favour, Bickslow, and don't move. I've got this.”

He tried an encouraging smile before he stood up and turned around. The redhead, Dooley and another of the mercenaries had closed in on them and the barrier. Freed realised only now that they were all wearing glasses. This could probably explain why they seemed to have had such an easy play with Bickslow, maybe his eye magic couldn't get through glass? And then, of course... there hadn't been a green light surrounding his eyes this time.

But he had to ponder on this later.

“What're you doing now, squirrel”, growled the redhead. “Trapped yourself again, huh?”

“You shouldn't say that to an opponent who has wings”, Freed replied coldly. He didn't waste any more time and lifted off the ground once more, feeling the eyes of the people on the ground on him as he flew away over both barriers he had created.

These people deserved to be put into jail. Freed might not have known anything about the rules of mercenary guilds, but ganging up nine against one and not acting on a contract was definitely wrong. Authorities needed to be informed, but until then, Freed would be the one to provide the cell they would be locked up in.

The mercenaries he had cut off with his first barrier behaved like expected and tried to overcome the disadvantage by moving around the stables; two around the right building, one around the left. The left stable was smaller, so he hit the running mercenary with a paralysing rune infused with magic from his eye and he stopped frozen in his track. Freed really needed to remember this new invention, it was very useful. The two other mercenaries on the right had nearly reached the corner of their stable, when he hit them with two new paralysing runes, as well. Then, he quickly flew over to them and continued his barrier with the appropriate tunes towards the corner of that stable. He extended his developing jail cell with another rune that he placed in a line with the gap between the stables, just about twenty metres behind the buildings. As a last step, he flew back towards the stable on the left and placed one last rune at its corner, connecting all the points with now five barrier walls that didn't let anyone out who had entered them.

And three mercenaries were already inside, three others paralysed. Perfect. There were only three left to go.

But when he flew back, now around the stables as well as to not get caught up in his own barrier, the place between the two stables was empty, except for Bickslow who was still on the ground, encircled by a violet-glowing barrier.

“Bickslow, have you seen where they went?”, Freed exclaimed, hoping that the other boy had come back to his senses a bit better or could at least give him a vague idea.

But Bickslow didn't answer; in fact, when Freed came nearer, he realised that he had slumped over completely now, not kneeling, but awkwardly lying, tangled up in his own limps. A bolt of fear shot through Freed's body and suddenly, finding the mercenaries wasn't his top priority any more.

It looked as if Bickslow had fallen unconscious, but when Freed reached him, he saw with relief that he was still breathing. It was a very heavy, exhausted breathing and cold sweat was running down his face, though. Freed needed to hurry.

But he could still not make out the remaining mercenaries. They couldn't have come very far, not in the short time – but they also couldn't currently touch Bickslow, who would need medical attention soon. Freed bent down a little, looking up close at his ally's leg that was still bleeding into his overcoat. Maybe it was best if he simply flew back to the granary and alarmed one of the farmers and then came back and dealt with the ---

“Now!”

It happened in the blink of an eye. A blond and red something jumped down from somewhere, and Freed didn't even have a chance to cast a spell. A mercenary landed on him ungently and rushed him off his feet, grabbing both his wrists and keeping them in a tight hold. Freed's rapier fell out of his hand with a clattering sound as he was pinned to the ground by physical force, his hands at either side of his body. The impact was painful and broke his concentration momentarily, causing his wings to dissolve into nothingness.

That he knew now that one mercenary had hidden in one of the stables and had jumped from the rooftop and that the redhead had hidden behind a pile of crates didn't help him one bit. Without his hands and rapier, he had nothing he could write his spells with.

“It works both ways, squirrel”, said the redhead simply. He had drawn a sword and came closer, pointing the tip of it directly at Freed's forehead.

Panting, Freed let his eyes quickly wander around; his rapier was lying about half a meter away from him, into the direction of his makeshift jail cell.

“Your old man might have cancelled the contract, but you still need to learn your lesson, it seems.”

Freed struggled against the man holding him down, but it wasn't crowned with success. He lacked the physical strength to move; and the man, a vicious looking sort with a scar on his cheek and blond hair that was longer in his neck than on his head, grinned broadly at his futile attempts.

“I'll say it only once, squirrel, and you better keep it in mind”, the redhead continued darkly. “Don't. Mess. With. Red. Minotaur.”

Freed had no room within himself for fear, he refused to be afraid of these men. The man had him pinned to the ground, that was true, and the redhead was dangerously close, too...

… but he still could move his legs.

With all physical force he could muster, he let one of them shoot up, hitting the man in his unprotected sensitive parts. The mercenary howled in pain and gave Freed's arms free in a reflex to protect himself, which Freed used to make a roll over to his side, one arm outstretched and his hand closing on his rapier that was now in reach.

“You damn moron!”, screamed the redhead.

Freed hardly had time to get up onto his feet again when a sword struck down to his left, barely missing him. A heartbeat later, he was engaged in a sword fight with the redhead, doing his best to parry, trying to hit the mercenary with moderate success.

It was a back and forth, a give and take – every centimetre that he pushed the red headed man back was quickly reconquered, every little cut that managed to get through his shirt he made sure to pay back. Things would be easier if he could cast a spell, but the concentration needed to keep up with the mercenary's fast-paced style of sword fight was too much to allow for any movements with his other hand lest he wanted to create an opening for the other man. He was, indeed, a formidable fighter.

The situation got worse as the other mercenary recovered from Freed's kick and joined the fight wielding another sword himself. Now, it was two against one, and all of Freed's concentration was needed to not get hurt himself. Landing a hit was impossible, pushing the two men back even more so. Instead, he had to dodge several attacks by making steps back himself, and he knew quite well that his self-created prison cell couldn't be very far away now. It had started about a metre behind the barrier that protected Bickslow, which Freed had already dropped behind. It couldn't be more than a few decimetres now, and there was no chance for Freed to move his other hand or regain ground.

The situation wasn't lost on the redhead. “If I get you behind the violet thing, you're not getting out, huh?”

His sword struck to Freed's left, cutting into his shirt and grazing his arm. The wound stung, but Freed managed to keep his focus intact.

“And if I go after you, and push you against the back wall where you can't dodge any more; and if I cut you down, all your nifty little tricks will go up in smoke, right? My comrades will be freed, and your pathetic friend there will be left unprotected.”

The other mercenary nearly managed to hit Freed's sword arm, and he needed to take another step backwards. He could already feel the magic in his back.

“That sounds like a good plan, don't you agree? I can go on like that for ages, what about you?”

It also began to show that they were two against one, and that Freed was smaller, thinner, and at least a decade younger. He was getting sloppier, let himself open from time to time and needed to quickly make up for his mistakes, which caused him to lose more and more footing against the mercenaries. Only one or two steps left, and he had no idea what to do.

But then, a little miracle happened: The second mercenary with the blond hair suddenly tripped, stumbled and collided with the redhead's shoulder, creating a small distraction.

“Watch your step, you god-damn bastard!”, cried the redhead.

Finally having the freedom to write runes, Freed used the distraction to activate his eye once more and cast two paralysing runes directly into the angry faces of the two mercenaries, just one step away from his own barrier.

Both men froze, and suddenly, everything was quiet, and only Dooley was left.

Freed couldn't quite believe that it had come down to luck again, but he was willing to take it if it meant that he came out on top.

But then, before he prepared to find Dooley with his compass spell, Freed checked once more for Bickslow and realised that the other boy had one arm outstretched and both eyes opened, though only barely. He had still not come to his breath fully, and still seemed to be half-dazed.

Freed made it a point to smile shortly at the other boy as he went onto his knees once more. “Thank you”, he said solemnly, and he could have sworn that Bickslow grinned a very tiny bit. “But please, try to retract your arm, alright? You need to stay behind the barrier. I'm getting you help.”

With a slow and rather ungraceful movement, Bickslow did as he was told while Freed renewed his wings.

He could search for Dooley later, one mercenary was hardly a problem. But first, he needed to get help for Bickslow.

The only people in the nearness that he knew of were the farmers at the still burning granary. Freed felt a little guilty because he hadn't helped them before, but he intended to make good on it now.

He didn't bother to land, only stopped in mid-air next to the farmer he had spoken to before. There were quite a few eyes on him and some people let out surprised cries.

“I'm afraid I need to ask for your help once more”, Freed addressed the man. “A group of mercenaries has assaulted my friend on the complex on the other side of the field, and while I have taken care of all except one, my friend is heavily injured and in dire need of medical attention. Can someone here help me with that, please?”

The man stared at him in disbelief. “Mercenaries? These Red Minotaur brutes, ain't that right?”

Freed nodded, and behind him, a commotion broke out.

“I bet they put the granary on fire!”, exclaimed a woman.

“I saw someone wearing their crest earlier that day!”, said a young man who carried two buckets of water by himself.

“One of these guys was roaming around the stables!”, added another woman.

“Bastards”, muttered the man Freed spoke to. “Listen, son, we are farmers, we're not going up against mercenaries.”

“Don't worry, I've taken care of them and will find the remaining one. But we need to hurry. Are there any people in the burning building?”

“What do you think we are, crazy?”, the man returned with a mirthless grunt that sounded like a weak attempt of a laugh.

“I take that as a no”, Freed said and turned around towards the building once more. “Everybody stay back from the building. I will extinguish the flames!”, he announced loudly, and some people let out another wave of surprised cries and whistles.

Freed decided to ignore them. He circled around the building in a moderate pace, not to close as to not get accidentally hit by a flame lashing out, but close enough to not make the barrier too large.

This one would be a full barrier, not a simple spell continued by runes in the corners. And this one would be round, and it would need his full attention. Dooley needed to wait a moment longer.

When he had finished the barrier, he landed where he had placed his last rune, fully concentrated on maintaining the effect of the barrier and fuelling it with a constant flow of magic.

Fire needed oxygen to burn, that was common knowledge. So all he needed to do was to cut off the oxygen within his barrier for long enough to smother the flames.

At first, a few people hollerred at him to stop the shenanigans. But as the flames grew smaller and smaller the longer he held the barrier active, the more of these voices became silent, until all that remained were deeply impressed “Oh!”s and “Ah!”s.

When he couldn't see a flame any more, Freed still held the barrier for a few more seconds just to make sure and only then dispelled it.

“You could've said sooner that you're a wizard, son”, said the man he had spoken to before.

“Yes, I am sorry. I was pre-occupied. And still am, remember – I need medical help back at the complex and need to catch the last mercenary”, Freed replied, trying to be calm. The barrier had cost him magic, he could already feel his resources being drained. But he needed his wings still, Dooley wouldn't escape.

“You say you've taken care of them?”, the younger man asked.

“Yes, all except for one.”

“The same way you've put out the fire?”, one of the women said.

“Not the same way, but effectively, yes.”

“Then we're with you”, said the older man. “You heard the boy, people, back to the complex. We've got an injured person there.”

“Please pay attention to the barrier I've erected between the stables”, said Freed loudly while he lifted off the ground once more. “Do not cross it, or you won't be able to leave it. The mercenaries you will find in the yard and on the roof are paralysed, you can push them into the barrier, but as I said, make sure you don't cross it as well. Thank you, all of you.”

And with these words, he headed off once more, back towards the farm complex in search for Dooley.

He landed where he had left Bickslow, who had closed his eyes again, but was breathing more or less regularly. “Help is underway”, Freed said quietly.

He dispelled his wings to save magic before he used his compass spell. The opening of his miniature barrier pointed towards one of the stables, in opposite direction in which the granary lay.

He remembered that Dooley still possessed at least a gun, and so, he moved carefully, but not too slowly, as he approached the stables himself.

The stables held draught horses, donkeys and an area where farm implements and tools were stored. Freed alertly advanced until he had reached the building's centre, but he couldn't make out any sign of the missing mercenary. Another compass spell pointed into the same direction again, and so Freed went on.

At the end of the stables, there was still no sign of Dooley, but Freed had noticed that one of the boxes was opened. Behind the stables, the large wooden wall had another, smaller gate and it was also opened. Freed was overcome by an idea – his interlude helping the farmers had taken some minutes, at least – what if Dooley had used that time, knowing that there was nothing he could do for his comrades?

Why should a wizard join a mercenary's guild, if not for protection; and what would he do if said protection wasn't effective any more?

The thought that Dooley might simply be fleeing angered Freed, though he couldn't quite place why.

He took a moment to take stock of himself, of his magical resources. Casting wings another time would cost him, probably too much, and Dooley had already an advantage on him, if he was really fleeing. He probably would need the compass spell again, and he didn't know what happened to the paralysing runes if he ran out of magic, they were a new invention, after all. Maybe it was best if he simply took a horse, he knew it wasn't technically right to do so, but these mercenaries had attacked the farm, too, and Freed would only lend it and return it later. And Bickslow would be fine, the farmers had promised to come, so essentially, all he needed to do was to go back to the stables, take a horse and follow Dooley and bring him to justice like the others, but... somehow, he couldn't.

Somehow, even though it made him angry and he wanted the man caught, following Dooley seemed insignificant now that the mercenaries didn't pose a threat any more. There were more important things.

And so, Freed turned around on his heels and left the stables into the other direction in which he knew Dooley had left, allowing the man to gain advantage. He returned to where Bickslow was lying, protected by his own barriers, and decided that he had left his ally lying there alone for long enough.

He could already hear the farmers in the distance, they were more than halfway there. Until then, Freed would simply wait and see what he could do about the wounds himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Countdown: Two left to go :)


	19. Move On

They had brought Bickslow to one of the shared dorms of the field workers, where he was lying on one of the beds now, wrapped up in bandages and fortunately, sleeping.

“He's been quite lucky, you know”, said a woman who had turned out to be both the wife of the farm owner and the most medically inclined of the people living there. “That cut on his chest could have ended in a disaster, and the graze wound on his leg just barely missed an artery.”

Freed, who sat on a chair close to one of the windows, nodded mutely.

“And you are either very brave, or very stupid”, continued the woman. She was currently dabbing a piece of cloth against a scrap on his arm, and the liquid it had been impregnated with reeked horribly and burned on his skin. “To go against nine of these brutes, alone!”

Freed didn't answer at first, instead, he looked over to Bickslow. He didn't really want to think about what would have happened if he hadn't intervened, though he knew the answer even without having to listen to the explanations of the woman. The scene of how he had found Bickslow just wouldn't leave his mind, and the sound of his laughter still echoed in his ears. Just the memory alone made Freed's toenails curl. “I don't think I had much choice”, he finally answered faintly.

The woman pressed the cloth firmly against Freed's arm.“No, probably not. Still, you are what? Fourteen?”

“Fourteen years and fourty-six weeks, to be precise”, Freed answered, a little automatic. “Nearly forty-seven weeks.”

The woman huffed and at the same time sounded as if she was gulping down a laugh. “Those fourty-six weeks make it so much better”, she muttered, more to herself before she raised her voice. “There, done. Press that onto your arm and then wrap it up in some minutes, there's bandages in the drawer over there.”

She got up from her chair, leaving Freed alone with the reeking piece of cloth and a sleeping Bickslow.

At the door, she shortly stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “You know, boy, you really don't look like the reckless sort.”

Freed wanted to reply that what he had done could hardly qualify as recklessness because he had very well known what he had gotten himself into, but she didn't wait and left the room, closing the door behind her.

On the yard, farmers were tying up the paralysed mercenaries and then, one after the other, pushed them into Freed's prison cell. It seemed that indeed, one draught horse was missing, Freed had overheard a farmer before he had been brought to the makeshift infirmary. Two other farmers were saddling horses now, a dog bounced around between them excitedly. Freed had spoken to one of them before, had given them the general description of where Dooley had escaped to.

It seemed that everything was taken care of for the moment being.

A few silent minutes later, Freed did as the woman had told him to, went over to the drawer and took out a bandage. His skin under the reeking cloth had turned a vibrant shade of orange and had probably adapted the smell, and Freed was just all too happy two wrap it up tightly. It still smelled. Even if he took the cloth with reeking substance to the other side of the room.

“Damn, hell sure is freaking stinky...”

Freed's eyes grew wider in surprise as he heard Bickslow's voice, muffled by a pillow. He had turned his back on the bed for only some seconds to remove the cloth from his nearest surroundings, and apparently, Bickslow had chosen exactly that moment to wake up and bury his head in his pillow against the smell.

“Bet that's a sulphur pit.”

“It's iodine dissolved in strong alcohol, more likely”, replied Freed, feeling a tiny smile move up on his face and relief in his stomach. “And I would bet that there are no pillows in hell.”

“True”, said Bickslow and took away the pillow, just to sniff shortly, wrinkle his nose and put it right back. “Guess that means I'm not dead, huh.”

Maybe it was the pillow, but Freed found that something about his voice was strange, unexpected. Maybe because he still remembered that ear-splitting, desperate laughter; and Bickslow's current, rather casual tone, was a stark contrast. For the time being, though, Freed decided to simply take it as it came.

“Yes, it does mean that”, he replied.

When no answer came, Freed simply went back to his chair and sat down once more, looking at the farmers making short work of the remaining frozen mercenaries.

A while later, the rustling of bedsheets announced that Bickslow apparently had enough of breathing into his pillow. He tried to sit up in bed, but the movement seemed to cause him dizziness and he had to support his head with his hands. When he had steadied himself, he took stock of his injuries, but stopped when he touched the bandage on his chest.

“Was damn close, wasn't it”, he muttered.

Now, he looked indeed shaken, pale and very tired. He had avoided glancing at Freed at first, but now, very slowly, he turned his head.

And when his eyes met Freed's, Freed was certain that he saw both, disappointment and relief in them. They were brown, as it turned out; like dark chestnuts that couldn't be more different from the sickly green of his magic.

But before Freed could say a word about it, Bickslow began to snort softly, and worked himself up into a full-blown laughter. It wasn't desperate, but still very much ear-splitting.

“Now, of course! _Now_ they're gone!”, he screeched.

“Just because you're out of magic!”, Freed said loudly, against the sound of Bickslow's laughter that still twisted his insides. “You exhausted your resources, that's why your eyes went out.”

In an instant, Bickslow's laughter died down. Instead, he stared at Freed as if he didn't understand.

The sudden silence felt a little fragile, and so, Freed continued in a now quieter voice, as well. “I've been thinking about it. My eye went back to normal after I spent all of my magic during my practise sessions, and you must have spend yours trying to control one of the mercenaries.”

Bickslow looked as if Freed had hit his head with a club. “It didn't really work”, he then said feebly.

“Well, that's because they wore glasses, I suppose.”

“Figured that much”, replied Bickslow. He snorted once more. “Ridiculous, isn't it? That a pair of fucking glasses is enough to keep your soul safe?”

Freed decided that for the moment, it was probably better to leave it at that. At least, Bickslow seemed to be slightly better. He sat upright in his bed now, and while he looked a little absent, he didn't seem to be dizzy anymore, nor likely to burst into that laughter that Freed still couldn't place.

“At least...”, Freed started, and Bickslow's eyes – scanning the room until now – darted back to him. “At least you're safe, too.”

Once more, Bickslow looked insecure, even downright puzzled. “I guess, thanks to you”, he replied. “And by the way, what're you even doing here? I thought you went back to your dad?”

“Yes... about that”, said Freed sheepishly. “It's a long story, really.”

Bickslow just shrugged. “Well it's not as if I've got anything better to do”, he said. “I doubt I can even walk with that damn leg. So shoot.”

 

...

 

“So it _was_ a typo”, Bickslow said plainly after Freed had told him the story of his past few days. When Freed nodded, cheeks a little red in embarrassment, he laughed shortly. “Buddy, sorry to break this to you, but that's kinda …”

“... pathetic, I know”, Freed replied dully, causing even more laughter from Bickslow. It was of the less shrill sort, and therefore, Freed was willing to let the little insult pass.

“I wanted to say ironic, but if you think it's pathetic, your call”, Bickslow said with a fake innocent shrug that made Freed roll his eyes. “Just about as ironic as that you first go home like it's the only solution, and then let yourself be exiled at the next possibility. And really, Freed – exile? Your people really are kinda dramatic.”

“Well, I didn't know that the events would... unfold... the way they did. Not when I went back. I had to do it to come clean with myself.”

At that, Bickslow scoffed and turned away. It made Freed feel belittled again, but due to their current situation, he was willing to push the feeling away.

“Say...”, Bickslow raised his voice after a short pause, still staring into a corner of the room opposite to Freed. “Did it really help? Seeing them again. Your family, I mean.”

Freed had to think about his answer for some seconds before he said: “Yes, it did. I haven't felt so close to my brothers in years, and even if father...” But he couldn't describe how he felt about his father, about his role in the events of the last days. His feelings were muddy, conflicted; and to entangle them right now, or maybe ever, was too complicated. “At least I was able to leave without us still being in conflict with each other. That's better. At least I think so.”

Bickslow, who had at one point in Freed's story started hugging his pillow, looked now very much as if he wanted to drown himself in it once more; his shoulders were hanging, and even if Freed couldn't see his face, he saw that he had lowered his head.

“You could do that, too, you know”, offered Freed. He thought back of what Bickslow had told him, about not being in the circus any more because he had made a big mistake. That he had run away because of that. When he had come to find Bickslow, Freed had primarily wanted to make things right with him, as well. If that was rescuing him from the mercenaries and helping him back to the people he cared for, Freed would be satisfied. “You could return and make up for your mistake with the people in the circus.”

But Bickslow only laughed into his pillow, or was that crying? It sounded far away and muffled, but there was a clear desperation that made Freed wonder if he had said something wrong, or didn't know the whole truth. “I'm sorry, I didn't want to...”, he said, got up from his chair to sit down on the edge of Bickslow's bed, next to him so that he couldn't avoid looking at him any more.

“I can't go back, no way”, Bickslow said finally, looking up from his pillow. For a moment, Freed was glad that he could safely look into his eyes right now, because even if it hurt to see it, at the same time, it felt important that he was able to see Bickslow's pain.

“And it's not because you don't want to, or is it”, Freed said breathily.

As an answer, Bickslow only shook his head.

A moment passed and Freed could feel the tension in the room, like too many words that were left unsaid and too many things he still didn't understand, mixed with too many things he thought to know even if Bickslow hadn't said them out loud. “You can tell me, I hope you know that.”

“Honestly, I'm not sure I can”, Bickslow returned, and quickly added: “Doesn't have anything to do with you, okay? It's just...” He shook his head and shoulders as if he was resigning.

Freed couldn't help it, Bickslow's reaction made him smile just the tiniest bit. “It's alright. Take your time.”

“Thanks, buddy”, muttered Bickslow. The grip on his pillow had lessened a bit, and now, he was sighing deeply as if to fight his own gloominess. “Seriously, Freed. Since you're the expert – what do you do if you can't go back, but things happened that made you kinda realise that you're going in circles? That you're just... I don't know. Making the same mistakes over and over and … then ask yourself: Is that all I can do?”

“It's simple, I think”, Freed said. He had to chuckle a little; Bickslow most likely had not intended to, but he had just quite aptly described how Freed had felt himself just two days ago. “Even if I'm probably not an expert, nor do I want to presume I know how you feel. But if you can't go back, and have been everywhere else, there is only one direction left, don't you think?”

“Yeah”, admitted Bickslow. “I know. But that kinda scares me.”

“Me too.”

It started as a soft giggling, but as it grew stronger and louder, Freed realised that there sometimes was something infectious about the way Bickslow laughed, and found himself laughing along this time. Maybe because laughing anxiety in the face helped to shrink it to a manageable size.

“So... that's what you're really doing here? Moving forward? Guess I'm lucky that you moved past me on that way”, Bickslow said. He sounded more casual again, as if the dark thoughts were currently kept at bay.

“I actually wanted to find you.”

Freed's confession made Bickslow's jaw drop, and confusion didn't even begin to describe his expression. “You... what?”

“I was looking for you, because... well, we both have this”, said Freed, copying Bickslow's casual tone a little and pointed at his eye. Maybe it made it easier to describe his motifs if he didn't worry about them sounding awkward. “And we're totally different people, but beyond everything, we're alike. You said that yourself. But then again, we've had different experiences. Different magic. I want to find a place to learn more about my eye, and I thought... you could either point me in the right direction, or maybe even want to join me.”

Bickslow just stared at him with his mouth hanging open, but before he could even just so much as stammer an answer, the door to the room opened and the farm owner appeared in the door frame.

“You there”, he grunted and gestured towards Freed. “My office. Now.”

 

...

 

“So you're really telling me that these mercs were actually after you, son. Because your father send them. Isn't that a bit overdone?”

The farm owner, a man called Chester, sounded rather sceptical as he interviewed Freed. It had turned out to be the sole purpose of the little session in his office, to ask Freed questions about what had actually happened on his farm. Freed couldn't hold it against him, after all, his farm had just become the setting of a not insignificant fight and a burning granary.

“My father probably didn't give it much thought”, Freed replied truthfully. “After I ran away, he simply wanted to find me as fast and efficient as possible.”

Chester grunted something unintelligible, but apparently decided to drop the subject. “And that street kid, what's-his-name... tattoo-face. He helped you out, right?”

“Yes, initially. But we parted ways two days ago.”

“Then why were these mercs after him _now_ , and felt it necessary to let him run into a trap using my damn farm and a fire in my damn granary as a distraction?”

Freed could understand the man's anger and frustration, but somehow he wasn't certain if he could tell the full truth. He was usually never at odds with the truth, but if he told it, wouldn't Bickslow technically be facing punishment, too? After all, he was a thief.

“Because they knew that Bickslow had helped me, they had seen us together. And when they couldn't find me, they must have followed him, instead”, Freed replied finally. His ears felt a little warm, and he hoped it didn't show.

“To interrogate him on your whereabouts?”, growled Chester, and Freed could hear that he only half-believed him.

“Probably.”

“That Bickslow must be a real piece of work if they need nine men to interrogate a damn teenager”, Chester said sarcastically. “'Cause when you just look at it... kid cornered by nine men, surrounded from all sides, even posts on the damn rooftops... and that guy with the burnt off beard that stood there like a damn statue pretty much looked like he was holding a knife. And your friend has a knife wound _on his damn chest_. And they even lured us all away with that damn fire”, he made a pregnant pause while his eyes narrowed on Freed, especially on his ears.

“I've heard the shots, too, you know”, he added. “And that odd noise that sounded like one of these desert dogs howling. You know what that looks like to me, son?”

Freed tried to keep a straight face and not flinch, but felt very much as if one of his tutors was reprimanding him. And he hadn't even lied, he might not have told the full truth, but he hadn't lied, either.

“Looks more like a damn execution to me”, Chester growled finally.

A cold shiver ran down Freed's spine and he gripped the armrests of his chair hard. While it was technically true, the word execution was rather frightening.

“So I'm asking myself”, the farmer went on, eyes still narrowed on Freed. “What in the world makes a damn teenager so dangerous that mercs want him dead even if they aren't paid for it?” He made another pause to let the meaning sink into Freed's mind.

“Revenge, I think”, Freed said quietly. “Because Bickslow tricked them, and helped me trick them a second and third time. They don't seem to take defeat well.”

“And why weren't they after you, instead? Or were they?”, Chester asked. Freed had to give the man that he was thorough.

“My father called them off, finally”, admitted Freed. “That and... the mercenary that got away, Dooley. He is a wizard and uses a type of magic that detects other uses of magic. After I found that out, I didn't use my magic for a while to not give them any advantage, but Bickslow...”

“Yeah?”

Freed sighed heavily. They would find out, anyway. “He can't control his. His magic is always active. Probably that is how they found him instead of me.”

Chester copied Freed's gesture and took a long, drawn-out sigh. “That's quite the story, son”, he then said. “But dammit all, that's so crazy. Nobody makes that up just so, and you don’t seem the type for lying, anyway. And these damn mercs are always going too far.”

Freed slowly released a very relieved breath and quite a bit of tension left his body. “Thank you. For everything you've done for us.”

As a reply, Chester only grunted and kept silent for a while.

Freed heard the clock ticking on the wall, and probably would have heard a needle drop in the room. He wanted to take his leave if there were no more questions, but wasn't certain he would be allowed to.

“One more thing I want to know, though”, Chester finally said and fixated his eyes on Freed in a stare that felt rather unpleasant. “What makes a boy like you risk his neck for a street kid?”

“It wasn't fair that these men targeted him”, replied Freed solemnly. “What they did was absolutely out of proportion. I had to do something.”

“I see we agree on that”, muttered Chester.

As if to approve once more, Freed nodded. The words he had spoken felt right on his tongue, but now that they were out, they also made him feel somewhat clinical, especially considering what he and Bickslow had just talked about and how it had felt to Freed. It was the oddest feeling, as if that neutral, factual tone that had always served him so well wasn't doing the situation any justice, at least not any longer.

As if reading Freed's thoughts, Chester chuckled darkly and nodded towards his office's door. “Come on, go back to that tattoo-face, son”, he muttered, and Freed was only too happy to oblige.

 

...

 

The day was nearing its end when Freed returned to the dorm. Bickslow wasn't there, and he learned from a young girl of about his own age that the owner's wife had returned in his absence and had had a look at Bickslow. Finding him awake and mostly thinking straight, she had allowed him to bathe and clean up wherever he wasn't injured.

Freed himself was taken to the farm's refectory for dinner, accompanied by the girl who strangely went a little red around the ears as Freed politely asked for her name and sat down next to her.

One of the older farmers explained to Freed later that he and Bickslow had to move out of the dorm, but were allowed to stay for the night, and as long as Bickslow wasn't able to move on his own, as a thank-you for Freed extinguishing the flames at the granary. They were given a little room on the first floor, apparently usually an office in which the farmers had put two mattresses and brought Freed's backpack to.

When Freed arrived in the room, Bickslow was already there, sitting on a stool next to the opened window and watching the last actions of the farmers outside. He looked a little more healthy, less pale and definitely far less dirty. They had given him new clothes, too; a little too wide and a little too short, but clean and a definite step up from the rags he had worn before.

Freed sat down on a chair on the opposite side and wordlessly handed Bickslow some sandwiches he had been allowed to bring.

“I miss them, you know”, Bickslow said quite solemnly after a while, not taking his eyes away from the world outside. “It's pretty crazy when you think of all the shit that happened because of my eyes, but I miss it. The souls. The world is just... it's not the same any more when they're gone.”

“It's crazy, yes”, replied Freed. But then, he remembered how it had felt to fly, how the darkness he had feared so much had actually carried him, nearly embraced him, helped him focus. “But then again... maybe it's not. I think I understand that now.”

“Those wings, were they...?”

“My eye magic, yes.”

“Told you it was awesome”, Bickslow said as if it was the most natural conclusion in the world.

It made Freed chuckle. “Crazy and awesome.” Then, he remembered something that he hadn't been able to tell Bickslow before. “Dooley said something to me, you know”, he started. “When we were fighting back in Gladiolus. He spoke about your eyes, and called them Figure Eyes. Maybe that will help you in the future.”

Bickslow snorted. “He can call them 'Steve' for all I care”, he said. He looked over to Freed, and seeing his sceptical face, he quickly added: “I don't care what they're called, that's all. I just need to know what they're doing.”

“If they have a name, we could search a library for information on them. Maybe there were other people with that ability in the past who wrote down records of their abilities – the name must come from somewhere, you see.”

“And yours? What about yours?”

“I... have no idea”, Freed admitted.

“So... I'm lucky?”

Freed didn't want to call it that way, not to Bickslow's face and not after what had just happened, but he also had to acknowledge that Bickslow had an advantage that he didn't have.

After a short pause in which both boys apparently lost themselves to their thoughts, Bickslow breathed in very deeply, and suddenly made a face that looked rather official.

“Okay, so... I've been thinking.” He looked over to Freed as if to ask for permission to speak, and Freed understood and nodded. “And well... I guess I can trust you. So I think if you really wanna have me tagging along with you, I should probably explain some things.”

Now it was Freed who looked confused and opened his mouth to speak, but Bickslow silenced him immediately by raising his hands. He looked both insecure and determined, and Freed understood that he needed to speak about this right now or he wouldn't be able to, whatever it was that he had on his mind.

When Freed didn't say anything and closed his mouth again, Bickslow continued. “Okay. So... The circus. It's... never been that big to begin with, maybe two dozens of people at its best. Were travelling all over Ishgal when I was a kid. I grew up with my uncle. He did that thing where you swallow swords, ever seen that?” As Freed only shook his head, Bickslow shrugged. “Anyway. Over the years, more and more people left. Some because of money, because... the circus wasn't particularly well off. Some because... well. Me.”

“They left because of you?”, Freed asked indignantly, but then he understood. “Your magic...”

Bickslow nodded heavily. “My uncle always tried to tell me it wasn't because of me, but I'm not stupid. I heard them talk, saw those little dark spots in their souls flash when they looked at me... I knew they left because I freaked them out. Especially after my eyes started doing this other thing. This thing where I control people.”

“I'm sorry”, whispered Freed, suddenly glad that all of his family had simply thought of his eye as an asset that needed special training.

“Nah, it's okay”, Bickslow said, in a voice that hinted it was everything but. “Long story short, after a while it was just my uncle, me, and an old crone too stubborn to retire to somewhere. And then, the last winter came.”

At this point, Bickslow started to fidget with the hem of his new shirt and seemed to stare at the roof of the next building. “Another long story short, I managed to piss off some people I shouldn't have messed with. Using my eyes. 'Cause I thought I was doing something good.”

He made a pause, breathed in deeply, and more than once; as if waiting for Freed to interrupt him, but Freed felt too uneasy to really say anything. “Well... turned out I didn't. I screwed up, big time. And then... the guys I pissed off, they came to get me. But my uncle refused to sell me out, a fight broke out... you guess how well that ended.”

Apprehension had crept into the room and Freed felt oddly constrained, he knew he wanted to say something, but it was hard to find the words. In the end, “I'm sorry” was all that he managed to get out.

“So now you know”, Bickslow muttered. “That's why I can't go back. 'Cause there's nothing I could go back to.”

He still looked outside and was now so focussed as if staring somewhere else was the only thing that kept him from tearing up, fingers tangled up in his shirt.“I didn't want it to happen, you know”, he went on. He sounded as if he was pleading. “I swear... I only wanted to help us---”

“That's not necessary”, Freed said, as the right words, all out of sudden, came to him easily. “I think I understand.”

The fidgeting stopped, and Bickslow even chuckled sadly into the night. “Right, you probably do. I just thought... When I tag along with you, it's better that you know. If you still want me to tag along knowing that, that is.”

“Of course I do.”

A smile wormed its way onto Bickslow's face, both honest and relieved and it seemed like the first time Freed saw the other boy truly glad.

They both fell silent for a while, both lost in their own thoughts. Bickslow started wolfing down his sandwiches, and Freed let his words, his story, rotate through his mind. It didn't really matter what Bickslow had exactly done, or whom he had angered. In a certain way, it was ironic – making people angry that he shouldn't have messed with, bringing their wrath down on him – it was what had happened with the Red Minotaur mercenaries, too. The irony was certainly not lost on Bickslow, was that why he had laughed so desperately? No matter what he had said, Freed wasn't completely sure that he really understood, that he could put all the pieces together and make sense of the other boy's actions, both in his past and with regards to the mercenaries. But one day, he surely would, and right then, the thought seemed more important than momentary certainty.

But then there was another aspect, another thought that gnawed on him, another question. Bickslow had said that his uncle had stood up for him instead of probably letting Bickslow himself take the fall. The thought made Freed feel strangely empty, reminded him of his own father and made him draw connections where he knew he shouldn't make them because he knew far too little.

“Bickslow, can I ask you something?”, he finally spoke up as his thoughts came dangerously close to running in circles again.

“Sure, shoot.”

“You said you trusted me... why?”

“What's that for a question”, Bickslow returned. He looked away from the window and towards Freed, scrutinised him with a look that turned his insides out a little but lacked the intensity of his magic.

“A rather understandable one, all things considered”, Freed said. “Is it because you saw my soul, and knew I was worthy of trust?”

At this, Bickslow laughed; the same shrill and loud sound he had made four days ago in that alley in Crocus when he and Freed had met first.

“Maybe I did, at first. But buddy – you just saved my ass even if you didn't have to. That's one hell of a reason to trust you.”

The words felt soothing, strangely warm inside of Freed. They even made him chuckle a little. “You did that, too, you know.”

Bickslow replied by whistling through his teeth and swallowing a laugh. Then, however, his expression relaxed into an oddly mild smile.“Yeah, I guess I did”, he said quietly.

“And that makes us even”, Freed stated, and before Bickslow could reply anything contradictory – because Freed had caught him taking in a breath as if wanting to speak – he got up from his chair and went to his backpack in search for the only appropriate reward for the both of them.

Bickslow still frowned when he returned a minute later, his lunch bag in hand.

“What's …?”, he started as Freed pushed one of Constance's cherry tartlets into his hands. “Cake?”

“Cherry tartlets, to be precise”, Freed replied, a little grin spreading on his face. “My nursemaid makes... made, them for me when there was something to celebrate. She gave them to me in the morning before I left the castle.”

“'Cause you left? 'Hey, Freed goes into exile, let's party!'”, Bickslow said loudly and broke into laughter until his tongue was hanging out again. “Woah, that's so nice!”, he added with a mocking undertone.

“Not because of that, silly”, Freed gave back dryly. “She made them because I defeated the marshal a few days back.”

“Defeated? The marshal?”

It ended up becoming a very long night in which all of Constance's cherry tartlets fell victim to two curious boys sharing stories about their lives before they had crossed each other's paths.

And when both finally made it into their makeshift beds, the farmers were already starting their next day of work on the fields.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my own favourite chapter, especially the last part of it. I enjoyed writing this immensely.  
> There's only one chapter left to go: the epilogue  
> I'm starting to feel a little sad that, after three and a half months, next week will be the last update to this story.


	20. Epilogue: Dear Constance...

… _it has been five days since I began my journey. You will be pleased to hear that I did not spend any of the five corresponding nights out in the open; in fact, I have been quite steady since leaving the castle. This also means that I haven't gotten very far until now, though; I am currently on a farm complex a few miles south of a village called Barbary Nut, just a few hours away from Crocus._

_This does not, however, imply that the last days have not been eventful, quite the contrary. After I left, I had another encounter with the mercenaries father sent after me – you have been informed about them? In all the chaos after my temporary return to the castle, I did not have the time to tell you everything about them. Suffice it to say I'm very happy I could escape them as often as I did. I had help at first, I homeless boy I met in Crocus by the name of Bickslow, and during my most recent encounter with the mercenaries, I met him again (the exact circumstances of both these meetings would go beyond the scope of this letter, though I will make sure to tell you everything in a later letter). You wouldn't believe it, Constance, but he has magical eyes, too! Not the same as mine, his have a different ability; but being able to relate to someone else feels comforting. The world, indeed, seems to be a smaller place than I imagined – which makes me wonder if there are more people like the two of us out there._

_I am telling you this because I intend to travel together with Bickslow. He doesn't know much about magic, but if the two of us join forces, it increases our chances to learn more. Not mentioning the fact that I am, indeed, glad that I don't have to go all the way alone. The decision of my exile was hasty and so was my departure, and when I look back to one week ago, so many things have already changed and will probably change in the days to come. It feels relieving to have someone who will travel with me; to have a friend. Though I have to admit Bickslow is a bit odd – he's recently been injured on his leg, but instead of staying in bed, he walked around on his hands the last few days! The kind people on this farm complex who have taken us in for a while were more than a little disturbed by this, it seemed. Well, don't tell anyone, Constance – but I thought it was rather amusing._

_I still haven't been able to understand fully what happened in the castle, though, and I think nobody will be able to help me with it, no matter how many people I will still encounter on my journey. I have seen and heard things the last few days that made me wonder, things that raised so many questions about what father did or didn't, and why the events had to unfold the way they did. I have written more about this to Coen yesterday – maybe his insight into father helps me understand everything. It feels a little awkward being able to talk to him so openly, but on the other hand I am glad. I never realised quite that much before that having brothers is different from what I thought it was._

_I need to stop here, Constance. I hear steps on the stairs, and Bickslow and I need to get going. His leg is better now, so we decided to leave the farms. I promise to write more later,_

 

_Love,_

_Freed_

 

“Seriously, what's it you're always writing there. The stuff yesterday has been half a novel, and that's two pages again already!”

Freed turned around from the little desk in their room to find Bickslow leaning in the door frame, resting his weight on his uninjured leg. He wore clothes the farmers had allowed them to keep, and one pair of glasses they had taken off the mercenaries before the King's soldiers had arrived to take the mercenaries away for trial.

There had been no news of Dooley.

“It's a letter to my old nursemaid back home”, replied Freed while he folded a letter, put it into an envelop and stored his stationeries back into his already packed backpack.

“Are you ready?”, Freed said after the cumbersome undertaking of mounting his backpack, much to Bickslow's amusement.

“Sure”, the older boy replied in between laughs, and just shrugged his unladen shoulders casually.

Before leaving the room, Freed had a last look back at the window, at the tower of Mercurius that was visible even from many miles away, and behind it, the white-covered mountain tops that hid a castle in the middle of a lake.

“Hey Freed”, said Bickslow. “Where're we actually going? You always keep talking about 'let's leave as soon as you feel better' - but where to?”

Freed turned his eyes away from the window, from the mountains. He had decided to leave it behind, and see the world he had never even dreamt about until some days ago. His world had been neat, structured and orderly before his magical eye had plunged it into chaos; but also, it seemed, it had been rather constricted.

How many steps it would require, how far he would have to go, how many years it would take to find the answers to all his questions, to find out about his eye and return to his family, he didn't know. But at the very least, he wouldn't go alone.

He joined Bickslow at the door, squinting upwards as the other boy gestured him out of the room. They must have looked hilarious next to each other; the noble son with the heavy backpack and the former street kid with nothing but the clothes he wore that weren't even his own.

He couldn't tell if a week, a month or a year ago, he would have thought differently about all of this; about leaving, about the uncertainty in front of him or his companion. But right now, he didn't care. Not one bit. Constance had called it an adventure, and he had never read an adventure that wasn't at least a little chaotic.

And so, Freed took a deep breath as he had left the room and turned his head up fully to his friend.“I thought we could join a guild.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... is it. The end of my first complete multi-chapter story. I'm a bit sad, I have to say; but also incredibly glad for all the feedback I've received, and a little proud that I did this. First of all, let me thank a few people (again): my incredible beta-readers TalinMirengo and oharalibrarianartur, my beta-listener, and everyone who supported me prior to posting this. Then I'd also like to thank everyone who left kudos here, or even a comment, I hope I said this in the last weeks, but those comments mean a lot to me. Knowing that this story not only was fun to write, but is also fun to read for others is a crazy incredible feeling that's hard to put into words.  
> Second, I want to make an announcement: Of course, this is not the end. I originally wanted to end this story with Freed and Bickslow in Fairy Tail, but that just grew longer and longer and didn't fit thematically with the rest of the story. So I decided to make it an entirely new story; work title: "A Tale About Fairies". I've already written 9 Chapters, and I plan on something along 20 Chapters again. However, I will also start a new job soon, so it can happen that I will write a bit slower than I usually do. I would like to publish this second story late this year, maybe around November but I'm not sure if I'll manage to stick to this date. Please bear with me if it's going to be later, but the story is definitely in the making :)  
> Third, I know that this story does not answer all questions. Maybe the second story won't answer all open questions, as well. But I have a plan ;)  
> Once more, thanks for staying with me for nearly four months now. Hope to see you again in Part 2 :D


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